Death at a Glance
by Eyes like Dawn
Summary: In a winter storm, Belle, a bard, enters the huge, Dark Castle. When Rumpelstiltskin discovers her intrusion instead of killing her outright, the Dark One and the intruder play an interesting game where one never sees the other.
1. Entry

_A/N: The Rum/Belle flagship has set sail again! Let me preface this by saying this tale will not be worked on until "To the One I Love' and "Mastery of Magic" is complete. With that being said I am looking forward to really sinking my teeth into this. The premise is for a novel I'm writing, but Rum/Belle got pushed into my head along with it, so here we are! As always, enjoy!_

**Disclaimer: I do not own OUaT, all I own is my ideas T.T  
**

**~8~8~**

The Dark Castle was an aptly named monstrosity of a palace. Thick, stone worked turrets of creamy gray carved of impenetrable mountain stone guarded the castle from all who would prey near. Nestled away in the high mountains of the perilous north, the ominous castle was a place no one ever for all their burdening problems would not dare tread near the dark citadel. Even the most evil of the mortals who lurked upon the realms would never so foolishly think to take step under the banner of the keep or step into the master of the castles frightening domain.

Within the keep were labyrinthine halls swathed in sweeps of dust and darkness where the ghosts of those long slain wailed their sorrows in the cracks and mars of stone. Their dried blood lay hidden under the grime of ages never to be given justice by any noble hand. Dungeons so low and vile not even rats who dare strike home in the pits of the torture chambers wreathed with rusted chains and gory spikes held the base of the stronghold on its ugly shoulders, uplifting the darker evil to the word.

Not only was the citadel dark, per the name 'castle', the dreaded keep was also big. Sprawling as far as the walls were tall, the Dark Castle was unquestionably the biggest keep in all the realms. A collection of different keeps interwoven into one monstrosity, the Dark Castle was a menagerie of castles all amalgamated into one mutated being. Spires and domes and buttresses spread out like different worlds crashing together vying for the same space. Some towers tipped the fluffy clouds whilst others sat squat and ugly like bears on their haunches. Overrun gardens and filthy atriums bedecked with frescos and dead roses littered the insides like maggots in a festering body. The colossal castle was a place taken over by a careless hand and molded into a mockery of any grand palace.

If Belle had seen any of titanic keep for what the citadel truly was, the sight would have perhaps given her a moment of trepidation before steeping towards the hostile doors.

Snow fell in heavy driving blankets upon the hazardous base of the perilous jagged mountains. Winters fury in the north was hard and merciless to the land, cutting through like a blade through a helpless body. White drifts covered all in a sea of frigid alabaster. The flakes of frost came in biting stings of pricking frost as they fell obliquely through the shrieking wind and small whirlwinds coaxed up from the snow laden land.

Belle coughed thinly as her numb, brown gloved hands felt the door of the Dark One's citadel. Snow flaked and encrusted her long lashes, rebellious threads of her umber hair, and heaped at the fringes of her thick cloak. Her body shivered uncontrollably as she placed her weight upon the cold doors for safety. Behind her, the snow and wind had made a consummated union of monstrous proportions. Their offspring was a blizzard worse than she had ever seen in her traveling days. Everything not a hand in front of her was blotted out in grayish white. Snow was all that she could ascertain through her frost flaked sight. Eyes puckered against the stinging freeze she had plodded blindly through the snow. Part of the beauty had thought herself dead until she had lucked out upon the castle's unforgiving portals.

In the early evening, before the blizzards siege, she had seen the array to spires from afar but lost sight of the shooting towers in the forest. When she managed to come out the other end, the snow was so thick she had no choice but to push on blindly. By fates fickle hand she had managed to come across the castle. Now all she hoped was for safety.

Nearly frozen hand curleds into a fist, the beauty pounded desperately upon the door. "Sanctuary!" her voice rose but was stolen by the pilfering, jagged fingers of the wind. "Sanctuary please!" her fist slammed against the oak, bringing only a muffled sound back to her all but deafened ears.

Could anyone hear her, she asked inwardly. Had the wind, about to steal her life, and the snow about to bury her in a case-less coffin, thieve away the last of her hope? Determination burned liked fire in her blood as she swept the dreaded thought aside. That couldn't be. She would try with all her power to live.

Forcing her fingers to uncurl, the beauty fondled for the doors handles. There had to be something to give her a hold upon. Abruptly, like an answer to her frozen prayer, two ice cold iron rings met her gloved hands. Grasping them, the beauty tugged with all her might. If her knocking did nothing, perhaps the creaking and groaning of rusted hinges and rattling wood would aid in grabbing some lumbering guardsmen attention.

Pulling with all her strength, the beauty suddenly careened backwards in sudden free fall. The twin doors flew open as though some hand from the inside pushed them outwards.

Landing on her back against the icy gray cobblestone, the beauty grit her teeth in pain. Tear pricked her eyes in agony, though she wiped them away quickly. The last thing she wished was for her tears to freeze. Her bones felt like glass against the snow. Still, she could not afford to lay there a moment longer. Already her body felt coaxed to a sleep where the frost could not harm her.

Shaking her head, the beauty denied the feeling of deaths cold embrace. With a stoic will, she scrambled up to her feet. The doors were flung wide, like a lopsided maw leading into darkness. Peering into the darkness not a hint of light she could ascertain, but the opened doors meant one thing – safety from the snow.

Hands nearly immobile, she clutched a bag slung at her side. Her feet moved vapidly as she entered the sable citadel. Though the wind howled through the open doors, a few torches in their scones flickered without a hint of dying out with the snap of the raging gale.

Forcing the doors shut, the beauty plucked up a torch in the nearest holder. A tingle shivered down her fingers as she touched the torch. There was something not quite right about the flames, but they were better than nothing. At least the dim fire dancing in her hand would guide her through the dark citadel.

Carefully, padding through the stronghold, more to keep the chilled ichor moving through her veins than anything else, the beauty trekked the ominous halls. Whispers of faint voices upon the icy wind kissed her skin and warned her of nameless peril. The blackness was almost total, blotting out the light, still, anything was better than outside, but the keep, just barely so.

The place was large, she admitted, larger than what she thought. All the while through her journey she dared not make a peep. She felt like a mouse through the secret walls of some home she did not belong. The darkness discouraged talk or sound of any kind. Only the whispers of the dead seemed allowed in the snaking halls and barren, mausoleum rooms.

Abruptly, her journey led her to a large chamber. Stepping inside Belle let the torch cast a scant glow upon the wide room. Even to her novice eye the place was one of recent habitation. The room looked akin to some great hall of trophies or treasures of the most affluent of kings and queens. Riches and trinkets filled the room this way and that. Tapestries of the most luxurious sort donned the walls and carpets from as far as Agrabah furnished the floors. Masterfully crafted cabinets were overflowing with pearls and rubies and vases of ancient age rested on alabaster pedestals. One large beech table sat in the center and to the side a large hearth crafted of stone. Two molded dragons rampant flanked the hearth as though beckoning her towards some murderous den.

Her heart leapt as she spied the black hearth. Dropping all stealth the beauty ran towards the maw of the fireplace. A cry of joy nearly fell from her lips as the dim glow of the fire showed kindling and dry wood. Without a second thought, the beauty dipped the torch in the maw and alit the hearth.

Flames, red and orange, in a cheery glow leapt from the torch and filled the fireplace. In what seemed like an instant the wood burned in bright flickering of fire dancing upon its stone stage. Slowly, the shadows and darkness was replaced by light and warmth, filling the room with an inkling of cheer of the dreary, blizzard night.

Kneeling by the flames, the beauty thrust her hands out to the warmth her body so craved. The glow of light burnished her pale face in a coppery shine. Peeling off her fur gloves and wolf fur lined cloak, Belle placed the soaked items by the fire. They had cost her nearly all her gold, but they had been what most saved her life.

Placing them neatly by the hearth to let them dry, the beauty warmed herself thoroughly. Her scarlet leather clothes clung tight to her cold body as she goaded heat back into her form. At the beginning she thought she'd never get warm again, but soon, her body began to heat. Once her body was well warmed and so was the room, her stomach growled.

Like a surly wolf, her belly groaned abject hunger to its keeper. She had lost her last food, ironically to wolves, but the move had saved her life. She hadn't eaten in a day and a half, and now with safety so near, her body relayed that hunger brewing within.

Rising creakily from her position, her frozen bones aching, the beauty once more grasped the torch kept close to the flames and began her journey anew. Whoever owned the castle, she knew would be less than pleased, but perhaps they would understand her dreadful plight.

Slinging her bag over her shoulder as an afterthought, the beauty once more began her trek. In what seemed like no time, the intruder found something akin to a kitchen. Certainly things had been used to cook in the large chamber before but the place seemed not in many a day had someone gone through the trouble of preparing a dish of even the meanest sort.

The hearth in the kitchen was dead and the pans covered in grit and grime. Termites had taken to feasting on wooden spoons and dishes were covered in dust. Despair for finding any food filled her heart, but not one to simply leave things as they were, she searched anyway, her heart hoping for an inkling of food.

Igniting the wood in the kitchen hearth, the beauty brought a fair amount of light to the chamber. The shadows lurked back in the corners sullenly, giving a homely atmosphere to the deserted kitchen of the bereft castle.

Studiously she searched through cupboard and even the cellars. To her success, she discovered a fine bottle of wine covered in dust and four apples somewhere in a sack. The apples were a tad wizened and dappled, but still anything tasted better than dust and snow on her tongue.

Content with her feast, the beauty warmed herself by the kitchen hearth. Sipping wine and devouring the apples, she warmed every inch of her form.

After her meal, the beauty stared hard into the dancing flames. With warmth, safety, and a bit of food in her, now was the time to think about the residents of the castle. From what little she had seen someone dwelled within the walls of the strange keep though she had not seen hide nor hair of those that called the castle home.

For all the mysteries that had sprung up, she knew in part the castle had to be magical. Torches did not simply burn by their lonesome and one did not simply leave doors to castle rich with treasure opened for any aspiring thief to make legend of themselves.

The only question was, who did the keep belong to? Tossing the inquiry far from her mind, Belle brought forth her bag. Always at her side, her bag she carried her life in stayed close at hand. Pulling out a sheaf of parchment, an iron pot of ink tightly corked, and a quill, the beauty began to write.

Bashfully, she supposed she owed the owner of the castle some sort of explanation for her intrusion. Warranted or not, people did not look kindly upon finding an uninvited stranger in their home.

Jotting down the note, Belle rose tiredly from her place in front of the hearth. The warmth of the fires and the wine in her belly were working their magic of her fatigued senses. Her head swam in sleepy depths that bid her fall into peaceful dreams. Soon she would not be able to keep her eyes open.

Lumbering to the great hall, as she decided to call the place, the beauty left the note upon the table. Grabbing her sufficiently dried cloak, forgetful of her gloves, she began her trip back to where she had hailed.

Tired now, beyond all means, she slogged back to the kitchen. Her eyes were barely open as she placed her satchel under her head for a pillow and pulled her cloak over her to sleep. Snuggling down on the warm stone in front of the fire, the beauty closed her eyes. Her only wish now was that for the person who lived in the castle to understand her straights and not be too sore with her.

If only she had known to whom the castle belonged.

~8~8~

"Home again," Rumpelstiltskin remarked gladly to himself as he appeared in the great hall of his home. Cockiness curled upon his smirking mouth as he swaggered out of the purple cloud of magic.

A deal for a sleeping potion in exchange for another had been a wonderful deal made with Maleficent. The dragon did not know how badly he wished to get the ridiculous potion off his hands. Putting a kingdom to sleep would undoubtedly have consequential draw backs. A potion for one would be so much simpler and now he held exactly that.

Smile upon his face, the fiend straightened the cuff on his sleeve as the purple smog burned away on the wind.

Immediately, he knew something was amiss.

Jerking his head up, the embers of the dying fire in the great hall spread out the faintest of lights. A pair of fur gloves sat close to the fire, evidence of some intruder. He had set no fire, nor did he have fur gloves so small.

In an instant his good cheer faded into a thin stream of nothingness. Someone was, or had been in his castle. At the inward words, something inside him sprang awake, a beast, a furious monster that lurked not only on the inside but the out as well.

Looking about, his black eyes found the note upon the table. Like the shadow of the dead, the fiend all but leapt upon the note.

Grasping the epistle in his hand, the fiend summoned another gout of flame to the hearth. The fire roared back to life giving him more light to see by.

Eyes scanning the page, his magic lurked just beneath his skin in case of some magical trap.

_I'm terribly sorry for the intrusion._ The first few words began in neat script of a delicate hand. Each letter was wonderfully curved, dictating a woman's learned swoop of the quill.

With a huff from his thin, gray lips he read on.

_I'm a bard who lost my way. I was being chased by some tavern owner who didn't want to pay me for my tales after I'd told them. I was run out and managed to get myself helplessly lost in the forest and was hounded down by hungry wolves. This, I know is no excuse for a stranger to be in your home, but I do hope you understand my plight before you judge too harshly of me. When the snow began to come down, I found the gates to your keep. I entered only in the most desperate of circumstances. I found no one here though the doors were open. I lit a fire and warmed myself and ate a few russet apples and half a bottle of wine I found in the larder. I sincerely hope, whoever you are, that you do not mind my intrusion. This entry was of desperation alone. I am no thief by trade only cold and hungry. If I had anything of worth with me I would most certainly pay you recompense for the firewood and apples but I do not. I wrote this letter of explanation for I do not think I could wait for anyone's return. Already the quill is slipping from my hand and my eyelids droop. I'm very tired but I am no fool to think you would, or anyone, would take my entry kindly. Perhaps, after a night of rest we can work something out for payment of what I've used. I dare think that if the snow keeps coming down like it has, then I won't have anywhere else to go. I am no beggar and I am willing to earn my stay. I pray, whoever you are you do understand the circumstances that have brought me here. _

_Sincerely, a grateful, lost bard_

No.

The Dark One crumpled the weather worn parchment in his grip like the once good humor he possessed. Anger brimmed within his scaled hide akin to an over boiling cauldron. His black nailed fingers shook tremulously as he balled the vellum and his claws ripped through the thin paper. No he did not understand.

He was the Dark One and this was his sanctuary. No one was to intrude upon his keep. Everyone knew his palace was one of horrors! Everyone knew not to step foot under the shadow of his dread citadel! Everyone knew death awaited in the maw of his stronghold, everyone except apparently one little bard.

Well, a nasty snarl marred his features as he tossed the parchment into the embers of the hearth; that would be taken care of in short order.

"Whoever you are!" the fiend yelled out into the darkness of his castle, "wherever you are. Whatever you are, listen closely." Thunder rolled with his voice taking his angry tone throughout every stone of the castle. If his shouting didn't wake the intruder then the rumbling would.

Pausing for a moment to let his shouting take effect and jar whoever was formerly sleeping in his castle awake, he began again. "You have made a grievous error coming here. You were better off dying safely in the snow! Do you know where you find yourself? You are in the castle of the Dark One!" Satisfied, he paused again to let the discovery sink into their flesh and heart. With that little tidbit panic would be settling in. No doubt, whoever they were would be desperately trying to find an exit or hark to their nearest deity for aid.

"If you're trying to find the nearest door to lead outside, don't bother. You're in my territory and I control everything in my little corner of the world. You cannot leave this extensive castle. You will never leave this palace. I will hunt you down! Every corridor, every niche, I will find you. It'll be our little game you see," trilled the fiend in devilish delight. Through his wrath once more he was the cruel imp. "This castle is very big Dearie, I know. You can hide for now, but not forever. And remember this," the words growled out in a beastly rumble from his lips. "When I see you, I will kill you."

A vile smile perched upon his lips as he let the last words sink into the stone. That would have his intruder in a tremble of terror. Of course, he could have found them at a moment's notice with magic, but that wouldn't have been fun. Better to let them go mad of fear first.

And besides, he allowed another sinister smile to carve his gray lips, he hadn't had such a distraction in eons and here one presented itself ripe for the tormenting.

In the bright kitchen of the dread Dark Castle, Belle shivered. Her repose was rudely jerked away by the rumbling and growling voice. The words seemed to ride the wind and linger on the castle air.

The Dark One, the moniker lodged like an arrow in her tactile mind. The Dark One's palace; the Dark Castle.

Shaking her head, Belle curled up in a small ball against a shadowed corner. The cold, rough stones of the corner sat flush against parts of her skin. The fire in the heart were already dim but not enough for her to feel sufficiently hidden. How she wished to simply disappear.

"The Dark Castle," Belle murmured in barely a whisper. Out of all the places to stumble across she had stepped foot in the citadel of the monster of the realms.

What had she done…?


	2. The Morning

Belle awoke in a freezing knot upon the floor in the unused kitchens of the Dark Castle. Blackness painted her soft azure eyes in the dreadful hue, making her mind think of a coffin rather than some larder that offered her shelter from the snow.

The fire in the large hearth had long ago died off into cold ash leaving the stone chamber instilled with the frigidness of the outside world. Darkness lay like a thick blanket all about her, keeping her a shroud that refused to relent by any meager flames.

Though the darkness ensorcelled her from every region and corner, the blackness was no comfort to the beauty. Half the night she had stayed up, watching the ever deepening shadows and the filaments of diaphanous gray cobwebs in the corners. With the smallest scratch or rustling, the beauty jumped and flinched at every errant sound that made the faintest noise in her ears.

A dirk, her only weapon, trembled in her white knuckled grip all night, but she had no belief such a paltry armament could do much of anything against the master of the massive castle.

Legend held that the Dark One was indestructible and immortal. As a bard she held her fair share of tales about those thought only to be true in myths, but the tales she heard were never good. They told the Dark One of being a beast with obsidian horns that jutted up from a demon head and jagged fangs that protruded like wolf teeth from an ugly black lipped maw. Though she never gave much thought to the stories before, by the screaming done last night she was certain they held some measure of truth. He certainly seemed a beast at least in attitude.

At some point in the dead of night against the howl of the ravaging blizzard winds and the keening of the draft through the stone, in her fatigue, she had fallen asleep. The blade had slipped slightly from her grip and the cloak about her snuggled tight to her worn body kept away the bite of the chill winds.

Only a spec of fallen dust had awakened her and now she sat in the darkness barely daring to breathe. She felt trapped as one who found themselves cornered in a sleeping dragon's lair; any move might be her last.

Belle's eyes darted about aimlessly in the sable shroud as she leaned against the abysmally cold wall. Though her body instinctively knew the morn was upon them, the dark gray clouds above did their best to abolish such a notion.

Thick creamy gray clouds filled the air like a flotilla of lumbering warships. Their burdens fell in alabaster downy from the air as they had all the night. The blizzard was abated none at all since the time the snow had begun. Wind still wailed and snow still swirled in the deep sea of frost and banks already heavily gathered upon the hard mountains face and jagged apexes.

Dread filled Belle's belly with gnashing teeth of frost at the snow of the winter hurricane bombarding the land. Even if there was a way to escape the snow would have certainly made such impossible.

No, she supposed direly in the darkness that threatened to consume her and leave nothing but bones and shadows, there was no getting out of the "Dark Castle" as he'd termed the place. She was going to die in the keep and that was all.

Thrusting the aura of imminent demise from her always bright spirit, the beauty flexed her stiff , cold limbs. Defiance to the lingering shade of death swelled mightily in her soul. No matter what occurred she couldn't rightly stay curled up waiting for the end. Either the cold, hunger, or he would claim her life if she did nothing but let worry gnaw her insides to ruin.

Crawling out from her nest of cloak, Belle strafed her hands out inquisitively to the dark. Her ink stained fingers touched and padded at frigid stone gently until coming to the rim of the hearth. Only a vague hint of warm radiated from the stones, but that was more an enough. Grasping for her dirk, she once more plucked up, the beauty thrust the tip into the ashes.

Vapidly, like some lazy soul slumbering in his bed, the embers stirred to life with her ministrations. Warm red slowly peeked from beneath the dark ashes alighting Belle's soul with hope even with such a tiny gesture.

Adding a torn sheaf of paper and a few pieces of wood to the intrepid embers Belle sat by the hearth until warmth crept back into her form and light instilled the kitchen. Quaffing down the last of the wine for breakfast, the beauty stared deep into the jittering flames, her mind lost in thought of her precarious predicament.

Like shadows, despair once more came surging back into her heart. She was going to die in the Dark Castle, the melancholy swathed in her soul whispered sorrowfully. The snow blockaded her even if his magic did not. There was no way of escape nor did she have food to survive the game as he so cruelly called his hunt.

Ever since her intrepid beginnings as a wandering storyteller, her fate was a perilous one. Of course, she knew the risks, but hazard never stopped her. Most did not live as long as she without finding some court that would hire them permanently or give up their career for a safer one or for family. She had always been lucky in the trade she loved, but now there seemed fate had turned its patron eye from her fortune.

Running a trembling hand through her dark amber tresses, the beauty grimaced. Sharp stabs of fear and worn weariness bombarded her from all sides. Her only hope was to at least last for as long as she could. Even in her dire straits, Belle the bard was not one to simply roll over and die. Perhaps she could come by food, and perhaps she could last long enough to see to spring, though she highly doubted that dream.

But what else did she have?

Slowly nodding at the only frayed bit of hope laid out for her to grasp, the beauty took forth her ink pot, quill and paper. Laying the paper down on a flat surface she began to pen another letter Her script scratched rapidly across the vellum as she penned another note to the master of the castle.

Anger filled her chest with every word as she scribbled down the new message for her captor. How dare he, that… that… thing do something so horrendous. All she had wished was shelter from the storm, and he welcomed her with promises of death!

Well, she supposed as she jotted another line angrily, he did not know her by any means. Even if she was scared she would not let that impede her. Courage shown brightest in the blackness of fear and if he wished for a challenge than she would prove to more than he ever expected… she hoped.

~8~8~

Rage still filled the darkness to near overflowing as Rumpelstiltskin entered the great hall of his lair. All night his mind and woven fates for the person captured in his home, and all night his anger and grown larger. The very fact someone still lived in his citadel was an insult to his very being!

Stomping grumpily into the great hall, the fiend surveyed the not quite right room. The dark dawn did little to cast light into the gilt chamber, but he could see perfectly well in the ostentatious room.

Someone, his intruder, he corrected furiously, had already lit the fire in the hearth.

Casting his eyes about the room to see what else had been tampered with, his black orbs came to the table once again. Fury boiled the ichorous fluid in his veins to noxious crimson mist. Another letter sat upon the table.

With a few large steps the Dark One brought himself to the table and picked up the newest letter from his intruder. For a brief moment, his heart calmed the fury swirling within. Surely the note would be a plea for clemency, a begging for mercy to spare them. Certainly now they regretted their intrusion and wished to promise him anything for safety and life.

Cheered an inkling by the thought, he read.

_I heard what you said last night. _The words were written in a shakier script than before as his eyes skirted the letters, eager for the sigils of despair to stain the page. _I meant no harm, but I see that means nothing to you. I am not afraid of you, for all your yelling and temper tantrum throwing. Despite what you may think, I am not afraid of death either. If you wish to play this game so be it. I gladly oblige you. Even if you hadn't locked me in, the snows most certainly would have. I still have no place to go. Given such, if you want your prey still alive you might want something in your larder so that I may eat. Though you have threatened my life I am determined to live. I would have tried to figure out some sort of payment for what I have already used, but since you intend to kill me, I owe you nothing. You surly, ill tempered, murderous brute!_

The words, almost like a sharp slap in the face, cut off abruptly, as his eyes stopped at the yellowish white of the page. In his mind the Dark One could almost see whoever penned the epistle stab the last dot on the page, eager for the challenge through they held terror lurking in their souls.

Rage ran rampant in his sordidly black heart as he re-read the letter once more in shock. Who did this person think they were to scribe such an epistle? Not scared of him, everyone was scared of him from the bravest knight to the smallest child!

"I do not throw temper tantrums!" Rumpelstiltskin screamed out into the nothingness like a mad man. "And if you want even the most meager scrap of food you have to earn your meals. I don't feed… _rats_." The word fell almost naturally from his tongue. That's what his intruder was, he assured himself, nothing more than a rodent who found lodging in the pen of a cat.

Listening to the silence all about him, The Dark One felt himself thoroughly justified in his retort. Would they, whoever they were, risk doing something productive in his castle out in the open for something to eat or would they waste in phthisis until they could not move from lack of nourishment?

"And," he added in a wicked sneer, "If you so wish to bite back at me you'll have to do better than a letter of angry words!"

As if one cue from some celestial being with a prickling sense of humor, something whirled through the air. In the blink of an eye a wooden spoon struck the Dark One in the back of the head with startling accuracy.

A bright lance of pain illuminated behind his eyes as the spoon tumbled to the floor in a muted clatter on the carpet. Grabbing at the back of his skull with his sharp talons, the fiend whirled about just in time to see the door close and the edge of a brown cloak vanish behind the door.

A black profanity spat from his lips at the action. Whoever his intruder was, certainly was trying to back up there claim they were not afraid. To be so close and to throw something at him seemed to solidify their words.

"You will suffer for that," he barked out, seeming like the puerile petulant tantrum invoker the letter claimed him to be. Rubbing the back of his skull, his eyes stared at the door where his prey had once stood behind. He could have gone through the door, but he knew that a useless venture. Whoever his intruder, they would be back to hiding in their holes.

Snorting like some angry bull in the direction of the portal, the fiend glared angrily at the nameless person somewhere scuttling about the stones. "You want to dance with death, and toy with words? Fine, I will oblige your puny little life."

Snarling, the fiend turned about back to the table. For a split moment he jerked back around just in case his intruder held more ammo. Once he was certain there would be no more spoons to be hurtled at him, the fiend turned his attentions to the paper before him. Summoning a golden quill to his grip, he flipped the paper over and wrote hastily upon the vellum.

The quills tip fluttered and jittered wildly as he scrawled his ominous text to his victim. Oh yes, he dotted and blotted at the vellum, even if they were not afraid, they would learn to fear him.

~8~8~

Darkness was just blotting out the sky as Belle crept into the main hall of the gargantuan Dark Castle. Weariness laced her limbs with every careful step. Per his words she had been at task all morning and afternoon. She'd dusted and cleaned a few of the halls with a wooden bucket and some rags she found in a dusty closet.

Once at toil, she had slowly discovered what horror lay beneath the crusted dust and misuse of age and dirt. The sight of age old blood splattered morbidly across the walls gave her a sense of dread and impending, inescapable doom that pierced her strong heart, but she had no choice. Still, she had stuck to her chores as a way to pass the time and contemplate her next moves for survival.

Now, stomach grumbling, Belle warily entered the barren hall. Her head swiveled about cautiously as she peered for any trap ready to be sprung. Through the day she'd worked up quite an appetite tending to some work and keeping an ear out for her hunter. Once or twice she had dived into some crevice from hearing a footstep or the wail of wind through the cracks in the walls or down the arched halls.

Part of her thought he was toying with her, but there was nothing to be done about the matter. She had survived one day, tricks or not.

Looking about for anything out of order, the beauty quickly padded into the fire lit room. Upon the oaken table sat a plate. Her mouth drooled with the sight of fresh bread, some exotic green fruit, and a roast thigh and leg from some fowl heaped in plenty upon the platter. A kettle of tea with one cup sat next to a silver tray heaped with other smaller bowls filled to the brim with creams and sugars.

Fragrant steam coiled from the spout of the kettle, telling the warmth of the brew. How long the tea sat there, she could not guess, but perhaps, the castle kept the tea magically warm no matter how long the kettle sat.

Her belly gurgled like some hungry wolf stalking the halls at the sight of the feast, but her eyes fell to something caught beneath the feast. Under the plate was her sheaf of paper, newly scrawled with different words.

Tenuously picking up the paper, the beauty read the lines of mean writ scrawled like dragon claws scored at the earth. The words were barely legible to her eyes as she scanned the page for some instructions or taunt. Would the food be some trick, laced with hemlock or poppy? Would he have really laid a trap for her so soon to end the game and the note was a terse letter of gloating before some magic overtook her?

_Doomed_ _Rat,_ the first line read, making her heart lurch in her chest.

_You think you're clever. You think yourself fearless. You are wrong on both accounts. I will show you fear, and I will toss your cleverness back into your face. From your little foolishness of throwing that spoon, I have ascertained you know your way fairly about the kitchen by now. Perhaps the kitchens, my kitchens, are even your den you have created in my home. By the size of your gloves, your hand writing, your… everything you appear to be female. These are but a few things I am willing to divulge that I have discovered. From there let me show you where your troubles lie. You have limited resources, giving me a distinct advantage that I shall abuse in every manner. Allow me to be brutally clear again if the first time did not make it past your obtusely thick skull. You live because I allow you to draw breath. If I so wished, I could arrive exactly where you are at any given moment and cut your life short. You are a rat to me, and I a tiger who shall hunt you down. The food you see before you now is incentive for our little game of death. Tomorrow I shall look about to see if indeed you have done anything but cower in your nest. If you have not, you can expect nothing but scraps from me, and even if you do, you may receive nothing. Your fate rests in my hands for as long as the game entertains me. Remember that rat. _

Scanning the lines again and again, Belle took in every erratic line. Fear once more galloped through her veins but also determination laced with the poison of fury. Though he might have been powerful, he would hold no terror over her life. She was not a rat though by all measure he seemed a beast.

For all his power the monster seemed to relish in the thought of her life being merely a game for him to toy with. She was nothing but a plaything to distract him from the snow before he slew her.

Abruptly a smile curved upon her lips. That was where he would be wrong. With the time in playing his so called game not only would he learn things about her, but she would learn things about him as well.

Certainly she would play his game, she had no choice but to play to live, but if she gathered more about him, then maybe, just maybe she could turn the game on him and the predator could become the prey.


	3. Bathing and Jackets

The morning outside the Dark One's stronghold was a bitter one indeed. Gray clouds lodged in the firmament had scudded away like ships set sail in the night. The sky was a brilliant sapphire of endless adventure in the morn without a vapor in sight, though surely another wintry typhoon was already upon the horizon winging towards the mountains fangs.

Cool golden sun glittered down upon the banks of snow. Diamonds lay hidden in the fronds of frost adding a dazzling display to the world of which the Dark One lorded. From the jagged fangs of the mounts to his keep all was awash in the turpentine white of snow.

Grisly satisfaction curved Rumpelstiltskin's thin mouth as he arrived in the great hall of his sprawling home. Cold late morning air wailed sullenly through the massive complex akin to the moan of eternally tormented specter as he stepped free of a puff of satiny purple.

Ignoring the chill, his eyes carefully scanned the large, gilded hall. In his first waking hours the fiend made certain all sat according in his ostentatious chamber, for there was no telling what his intruder could do all alone on the first tier of his citadel. She might have been a foolish mortal, but she was an unusually lucky foolish mortal.

Satisfied, nothing was amiss, he settled his gaze upon the long polished table in the epicenter of the room.

The plate he had given to the girl and the amenities to go along with her first real meal in the sprawling Dark Castle sat neatly upon the table. All was still as it should have been without one spoon out of place.

She had indeed taken the risk of discovery and traps to sate her hunger telling him she was careful, but still determined, Rumpelstiltskin observed, storing the information into the ancient annals of his clever mind. Worry would not stop her much. Not when there was something to be gained.

Such could be exploited.

Drawing closer to the large table, upon further inspection, the fiend saw the plates had not simply been left out. The dishes were cleaned and placed back on the table in the same order laid out for her. Left on the cleaned plate, a small note once more scribbled in her neat hand lay ready for his perusal.

Studiously his dexterous fingers roved over the cutlery and cups and the small dishes neatly placed upon the silver tray. The kettle, when he lifted the ceramic article by its painted handle was refilled with water.

A spear of impressment lanced at his heart. She had not simply taken a meal, he knew, she had been polite enough to clean up any mess.

A frown marred his scaly face as he withdrew his talons. Wiping his hand upon his tunic as though he had touched something diseased he grimaced. The rat was still trying to prove it wasn't afraid or trying to be a bother. How foolish she was.

With a wave of this hand the Dark One filled the kettle with tea. Gray steam slipped from the curved spout as the waters and the conjured leaves warmed for his morning usage. He had tea every morning though never like this.

The beast chuckled slightly as he picked up the kettle and poured the fragrant contents into the cleaned cup. Steams swirled up into the drafty currents about the sprawling citadel and shredded in the fangs of the cold wind. The aromatics danced temptingly upon the air, enticing the fiends routine thirst as he added a dose of honey and a shot of cold milk conjured with but a thought of his wants.

Lazily picking up the small note left as he doctored his tea with one hand, the fiend scanned the page.

_Dark One,_

_My utmost thanks for the meal. I was surprised you chose not to sprinkle my supper with poison or some magical curse to turn me into a newt or something even more… unwarranted. Even though you claim we are at odds I am still grateful for what you have allotted me. At least, I know I will not starve in this hunt. _

_Grateful,_

_A lost bard._

Warming his hands upon the ceramic sides, Rumpelstiltskin let the note fall back to the table and allowed cunning smirk to trace his lips. If she was trying to kiss up she was doing a poor job. "I hope the meal was to your liking, Dearie," he mocked aloud, his voice a taunt to disturb his intruding rat. Without raising his voice, with a bit of magic, his tittering impish tone rang like thunder throughout the stone.

If she was sleeping or loafing about, which certainly she was, then he would remind her to never let her guard down. With every day that came, he knew, bringing the cup slowly up to his lips, he would have to keep the intruder on her toes. Perhaps, he considered with an inward laugh, he could destroy her with paranoia.

"It was, thank you," Belle abruptly replied aloud to the fiend, her voice ringing through the main hall.

Taken off guard, the Dark One flinched at the voice of another mingling with the echo of his inquiry. Sputtering the first sip of his drink, he accidentally pushed the cup forward. Clumsily, the tea cup tumbled out of his clawed hands and crashed to the finely carpeted floor in a dull thud.

Streams of brown liquid soaked the fine carpet from the unexpected blunder. A large stain soaked through the vibrant hues of the rug, marking an ugly splotch where he stood. Looking down, the stain almost seemed to mock him for his uncertain action prodded by her speaking.

Anger filled the Dark One with the sudden measures that surprised him. If there was one thing he hated in his life as the Dark One, surprises were at the very apex of the list.

Jerking around quickly as though the girl would be standing there, the fiend glared at a stone wall before his gaze. The wall was adorned in ancient woven tapestries of dull red and blue that eschewed the majority of cold from the great hall. For the sake of his beastly pride, he hoped she hadn't heard the cup fall.

A growl filled his voice at her impetuousness. His eyes puckered to the tapestry laden wall as though he could see what lay behind the rock. "Well, it appears as though you're up and about. What's the matter Dearie, couldn't sleep?"

"No, no," the intruder explained, her voice cheerful and spry, "I slept very well with a full belly. In fact, I've been up for two and a half hours now." A hint of pleasant laughter that echoed about the main hall danced through her voice. "The sun has long been over the mountains peaks. Do you always sleep so late?"

Defensiveness curled about his heart like a serpent squeezing over hapless prey. Fury filled him like the tea that now sloshed over his floor. "This is my castle! I may sleep however long I choose, rat!"

"Long enough for me to finish the hall I was cleaning yesterday," Belle revealed almost proudly. "It's the third hall from the door that leads to the vestibule on the right. You may check if you wish."

Making sure, the female could not espy him from anywhere, the Dark One snorted irksomely. What game was she trying to play?

Kneeling to pick up the cup, the fiend inspected the trinket as he spoke. "Perhaps I will and mayhap I won't, Dearie. I am master of this game. I will choose what is relevant to my desires and what is not. You dance to my tune do not forget that."

He would not allow her to think she controlled any part of his game. Her life was forfeit in his hands. His intruder was a puppet and he pulled the stings on a whim. She needed to know he granted her leave to live and do whatever she thought she was doing to undermine him was something he allowed for more of his amusement.

Delicately revolving the cup in his nimble, scaled hands, the Dark One spied the cup for any flaws. The tea cup had fallen upon a thick, lush carpet, but from the height he was surprised the trinket hadn't shattered.

Quickly, his dark, searching eyes came to one chink in the once flawless cup. A chip, somewhere entangled in the carpet now, lay bereft of the blue gilded rim.

Fury swelled one again in his heart at the sight of the imperfection. That… rat had made him drop the cup. She was trying to throw him off his certainty!

Curling his hand tight over the trinket for a moment he thought to crush the chipped cup. Abruptly, almost in revelation from deep within his heart, he stopped. The cup would stand for his moment of surprise, the fiend knew immediately. Chipped though it was, the cup would be a symbol. He would never be taken again. Every time he saw the cup he would be reminded that even mortals could still give him a surprise or two to try and find a chink in his immortal carapace of certainty.

"We'll see about that," Belle retorted, challenge in her tone. She could take anything he could think of to throw at her. If he wished to make her work even harder then handle that she could.

"Brave words for a rat." Rising slowly he placed the chipped cup silently back upon the tray.

"My name is not "rat" or "Dearie" or any other thing your mind can scrape up to deem me," the girl was silent for a moment as though debating whether to give her moniker. "My name is Belle," she revealed finally.

What could telling him her name hurt, she pondered intricately in the maze of contemplations that housed her thoughts. There was nothing he could do with her title let alone use it to his advantage. She had no family or friends that would be in peril from her name, and she was already in a trap. At least with a name they could be on some kind of standing. She was no worthless toy to be harassed then broken. She was a person just trying to survive.

A huff snorted from his nose as he rolled his eyes. "Goody, I'll know what to carve on your headstone then: Belle, the foolish bard who intruded in a castle one too many times!"

"You're heartless." Cool anger rang in her tone.

Laughter, dark and cruel rolled from his mouth. "If that revelation has taken you so long to figure out then you're more foolish than I imagined."

How could she think he was otherwise, he supposed with ungainly humor. Crossing his arms, he stared at the large door and the wall she lingered behind. "Haven't you ever heard the stories of me? The heartless, the cruel, the beast?"

"I don't believe in things like that about people," rebuffed the beauty almost softly, her words gentle. Abruptly, her tone turned to stone again. "But you're certainly trying your hardest to convince me otherwise!"

How could one man be so… so… beastly!

Creeping to the portal that separated them, the Dark One gently neared her hiding place. His black leather boots made no sound as he stopped at the door. Slowly, carefully, the fiend curled his claws about the golden latch. "You should have believed it, girl," he whispered plainly. No malice or anger hinted his voice, simply cold fact.

In a heartbeat the Dark One swung the door open. Cold, musty air danced and fluttered mildly through his matted dirty brown hair as the portal lurched open. Staring into the darkness, a small curse fled his lips. The girl was already gone.

~8~8~

Belle huffed angrily to herself as she laid out her scant supplies on the cold kitchen floor. "Beast indeed," the beauty grumbled to herself before taking stock of all she had in the world.

Her stores were painfully limited in every regard, she admitted with an outward flinch as she counted up her treasures one by one. Two books, her favorites, sat in the center. Covered in old brown leather that was peeling the tomes were a testament to her care and love of tales. The vellum pages were all well fingered and worn with prints from reading them after earning her suppers from taverns. Parts of the spine were chipped of their leather and deteriorating in other places. The pages were coming undone from the binding leaving them in near shambles.

They were nothing to look at but her heart softened at the sight. She so did love books, even those tattered and ruined.

To the left of the books a small wedge of faintly purple lye soap lay wrapped in a faded blue cloth. Her travels oft made her dusty and dirty from walking through dust and mud and spinning her tales in smoke and ale stench laden inns. She preferred to be clean if any of the taverns she resided for a night or two had tubs. Soap was a luxury but one she afford herself whenever she could.

On the other side of the twin books was a pile of blank papers wrapped by a blue silk ribbon. A small inkpot stained with the leaving of spilled contents on the sides, a bundle of quills from various fowls and a quill sharpener all sat clustered together in neat disarray together. Though her skill was an oral one, she loved to pen down things she witnessed on her travels and other oddities that caught her eye. The written papers had become a random journal with no rhyme or reasons to the pages there in.

One day she hoped to sting the pages together into her own journal-like tome, but that seemed to be all but a wistful dream.

A sigh tumbled from Belle's lips as he eyes scanned the last things she possessed. Her dagger sat in its red leather sheath next to the quills. A silver flint that she used to start fires when she was forced to sleep in the forest was tied on the sheath cord to keep her from losing the precious item next to her dagger. Used together, the flint and the dagger could spark tinder to keep her dry and safe in the dark woods.

Given to her by a kindly woodsman, the dagger and flint was a gift for her tales to him and his little ones. No regular dagger, the weapon was of glinting damask steel. Out of everything she owned the dagger was the most expensive.

Over time, out of necessity she had become adept in the skill of the blade. She could throw the dagger well and hit accurately or use it up close to the ribs and heart. She had won bets of much needed coppers and silvers from her throwing skill before. No brigand she ever met could best her with the blade.

Still, a disheartening frown pulled at her lips. How could any manner of blade play stop the Dark One? With a snap of his fingers he could cease her heart from beating or freeze her blood.

Placing her hands on her hips, the beauty stared at her scant supplies. "Perfect," she muttered in a near groan. She would have to survive the master of magic with paper, pens, and a dagger.

With another sigh the beauty plucked up the sliver of soap. The faint scent of lavender wafted from the last of the bar. Sadly, the beauty inspected the chip with a longing. The last bit of chores had left her feeling grimy. Dust clung to her skin in a grayish film and her hair felt matted with cobwebs and grime that crusted from the walls. Sweat congealed the testament of her toil into a pungent scent that was less than pleasant.

Perhaps a bath would be just the thing to help her feel better, the beauty pondered inwardly. A good bath always momentarily washed away her troubles with the water and the scrubbing. Even her red leather needed a good wash off.

Yes, she concluded with a small smile. A bath was just what she needed. Tucking the sliver of soap away, the beauty crept from her den. If the Dark One had a place to bathe she would find it and use it as best she could.

~8~8~

"Maybe he doesn't have a bath after all," Belle whispered hopelessly aloud to herself as she stalked another grime filled hall.

Irritation lined her dirt smeared features as she peeked inside another door only to be met with nothing. For the past two hours she had been searching for anything that looked remotely like a wash room. Castles oft had a place to bathe though not many used them. Normally they were but wooden tubs or silver to keep heat, but she hadn't found even that! Room after room all she discovered were hoards of golden string and bibelots forgotten in troves of dust.

Perhaps he didn't need one, she pondered once and awhile, but immediately dashed the thought away. The palace was too huge, not to have some wash room of some kind. But where would it be? In her search she tried to peer into the halls that seemed less clogged with dust, meaning more movement, but so far the thought was in vain

A sigh flew from her lips as she arrived at the last door of a winding hall. If this was not the one, then she would simply have to wait another day. The day was growing late and she needed to make plans for the night.

Pushing open the door, the beauty stared down a flight of stone stairs. Ever-glowing torches flanked the hall to add luminance, but the stair well looked ominous. A strange heat roiled near her ankles. Where did such a thing lead?

Gathering her courage to overpower her whispering wariness, the beauty cautiously stepped down the hall. Her steps were like shadows footfalls as she descended carefully. Where did they lead? The dungeon? More treasure? A cave?

Hitting the last step where the stairs ended with only a wall, the beauty turned sharply to her right. Abruptly a smile found her lips as she gazed in awe and victory at the sight before her. A large, hollowed out portion of the ground under the castle sprawled before her. The top was dome like, adding magnitude to the chamber.

Milky steam wafted through the air in warm mists that tickled her skin. From the edges of the mists heaps of leather and dark shaded clothes sat in a pile and tools for washing all sorts of fabrics from muslin to coarse linen were gathered. Pegs jammed through the stone walls held crisp clothes ready to be reaped

Walking carefully into the mists, the beauty stared in amazement at the center of the room. A large, steaming pool of water rippled in the center of the chamber. Far to the side, a spring of some sort for washing clothes burbled through a hole in the rock wall and out to its own separate, smaller pool of water.

Creamy sugar tinted mist rose like fog from the waters. Some sort of underground heat source, she figured, or magic, kept the water eternally warm which clashed with the coldness of the castle producing the fine mist.

Kneeling, the beauty dipped her hand down into the water she found the liquid a perfect temperature. A shiver of delight shot through her. Hot bathes were rare when she took one, but here was the perfect place.

Turning to her left to make certain all was clear, the beauty spied an ornate shelf carved from the grayish, wet rock. Different oils and salts glimmered in small amphora's and clay pots upon the large shelf. A multitude of hues glimmered in her vision, each more tantalizing than the last. Blues and gold's and garnets and daffodil along with some many other tints gleamed temptingly for use.

Names for the tinctures and oils sat scribbled on the front of the bottles by a thin piece of brown paper tied with a bit of brown twine. Lily water, suns kiss, milk of dew, and others that she had never heard of lined the shelves.

Delicately picking up one scribbled with "rose extract" the beauty swirled the crimson vial. She would have liked to use that one.

Still, a frown came to her lips. She was no thief. The oil was not hers no matter how tempting the balm would seem on her flesh. She would earn what she used. But how?

Turning her eyes back to the pile of clothes, the beauty nodding inwardly to herself. The clothes would be the perfect price to pay. They needed to be scrubbed, and working for food and shelter she had more than done enough laundry in strangers homes and inns for her suppers.

Nearing the clothes she knelt to shift through them and get down to work scrubbing them. The scent of magic hung heavily to the garments as she separated them by torso and breeches. Though heavy, the smell wasn't unpleasant. Certainly there were other scents that could have pricked nausea. In fact the smell was almost comforting.

Shaking the thought away, the beauty looked for spots that needed more attention than most to scrub out. Her face paled as her search finished as soon as it had begun. Her hands trembled, but she didn't, couldn't, drop the clothes she held.

Streaks of old, dried blood swathed the leathers and cotton and linen. Not one scrap of cloth was an exception. Blood crusted and tainted every article of clothing in some fashion. The imprint of bloody fingers, a splashes from some blunt trauma and even splatters of gore from something be ripped clean in two stained the clothes.

Disgust rose like gorge in her throat. No wonder they needed to be cleaned. No wonder he was called in yore as the beast.

Forcing down her distaste, the beauty took the last of her soap and began to get to work trying to get the blood out as best she could and forcing herself not to think of the thing that prowled the keep above.

~8~8~

A content sigh fell from Belle's mouth as she floated upon the warm waters. Her body felt like a lotus blossom in a pool being pushed by the lazy current. Slowly a smile worked its way upon her cleaned face. The bath _had_ been just what she needed. The warm water was a blessing to loosen her worn muscles and ease her worried mind.

Once done with the chore of washing his clothes, her body was sore. Her back ached and throbbed from being hunched over scrubbing away. Getting the blood out was no mean feat. After their cleaning she left them to dry as best they could by one of the torches and cleaned her own clothing with the breath of soap left. With that done, she took her payment of rose oil and scrubbed off the grime and dust and dirt until she was pink. She had even managed to wash her hair, an even rarer delight.

A regretful sigh left her lips as she swam to the edge of the stone pool. She had spent far too much time down in the bathing room splashing like a child and letting the waters soothing kiss steal away her ill. The hour was getting late and only the muses knew what the imp was doing.

Pulling herself out of the water, the beauty was glad the air was not to cold. The steam made certain of that. Water dripped from her slender body as she made her way from the pool. Shaking herself like a dog, she let that suffice to dry her. There were no towels and she hadn't thought about one.

Walking over to her clothing, Belle felt the leather and the cotton inside. A frown coated her lips. Still not dry after an eternity in the pool. Shrugging, the female wandered over to the place where other clothes had been hung on pegs. Eying the different attires, the girl inspected each. Surely there would be no harm in borrowing one, just until hers were dry.

Taking a brown jacket that caught her eye, the beauty took up the article. Her eyes studded the great coat with curious interest. The entire jacket was made of some strange brown hide. The jacket was not of leather, but certainly not cloth.

Running her hands over the fine jacket, the beauty easily slid the thing on. The garb was long, neatly fitted for a lean frame, and draped over her body. The tails to the jacket hung below her knees and the sides were more than enough to wrap about her body.

The smell of lye and the sea drifted from the coat. Certainly it was something the Dark One wore, but still it was extremely comfortable. Odd, the though struck her, that something of his should be comfortable. Didn't people like him wear spikes and chains and other horrid implements to strike terror?

Pulling the jacket close about her body, the beauty abandoned the thought and moved to gather her own clothes. Perhaps, she considered, they would dry faster out of the steam and in the heat of the kitchen. Collecting her clothes, the beauty froze at a sudden noise.

Footsteps.

Snatching up her clothes, the beauty dove for the darkest corner in the fog. In the mist it was hard to see, but sound was no matter.

Her heart throbbed wilding in her chest as she clung to the stone wall. Holding her clothes tight to her chest, she barely dared to breath. The rock was cool, but offered her no ally of comfort and protection. Blood oozed sluggishly through her narrow veins and pounded crazily in her ears like war drums. Of all times for him….

"What have we here?" the Dark One trilled as he reached the bottom of the step. From the moment he noticed the door was not completely shut at the top of the stairs he knew who was in the bath house. Sniffing the fragrant steam that smelled of rose, he stalked into the wash room. "I smell a rat."

After the morning he delighted in putting her ill at ease. No doubt, he chuckled inwardly she was somewhere quivering in fear from his presence so near. In a heartbeat he could have dismissed the steam, but that would have ruined the game far too soon. Better she know he could, rather than he did.

"Now just what," he began as he moved like a tiger through the savannah to collect what he had come for, "Are you doing down here? Looking for a way out perhaps?" A chuckle fell from his mouth. "There is no escape, rat."

Bolstering her courage, the beauty threw her voice as she had done in the morning. "I didn't come here to seek escape," she replied honestly. Instinctively, she pulled the jacket tighter over her wet form. "What did you come here for?"

"Just to show you I know where you are," the fiend lied flippant. In all honesty, he had stumbled upon her on accident on his real mission down to the bath house. "And to collect… My jacket!"

Surprise swathed his gray-gold visage as his eyes fell upon the empty peg where his coat had stayed. The one thing he needed….

"My brown jacket!" he snarled to the emptiness about him, all humor gone. Turning a circle he glared through the steam and the cloying smell of bathing oils. "Where is it?"

Rustling echoed about the humid stone chamber as the beauty slipped gracefully though the steam. "The one with the long tails on the end?" Belle queried easily, her voice trying to hide the tremulous wariness brewing within. He was far too close for comfort, more so given her current state.

Still, a hint of satisfaction pierced through her anxiety. He was as flustered as her, perhaps more so.

"Yes, yes, yes," Rumpelstiltskin snapped impatiently, "_That_ one."

That was his favorite jacket. He tried to wear it whenever he went out. The golden dragon's scales that turned to a russet hue added a certain perilous malice to him. He didn't need a slip of a bard rummaging through more of his things.

Even though he couldn't see her, she fought to hide a smile. "Oh that one," she teased, her tone the teasing one. "I'm wearing it."

His jaw dropped open. The gall of the woman! "Give it back," the fiend growled like a surly child. "I won't have you stealing anything else from my home, rat."

Balling up her leathers she tucked them under an arm as she began to creep away. "I needed something to wear for a little while. I'll have it back good as new in an hour, cleaned with the rest of your clothes if you didn't notice. And," she added, "I happen to like it. It's soft and comfortable."

"It's made from the hide of a golden dragon I brought down and skinned," he informed her with a snarl. "Which is exactly what will happen to you if you don't give me my property back this very moment!"

First she was intruding, throwing cutlery, and now stealing his clothes! Where would it all end!

Why was he being so contentious over a simple jacket, Belle contemplated as she edged her way to the exit. The threat meant little to her, but the ardency of his want lessened her teasing. "I'm sorry," she returned sincerely, her voice gone from all humor. The last thing she ever wanted to do to anybody was taunt and be cruel. "If I had known I would have never touched this one. I'll return it immediately once I'm dry."

"Your apologies are worth as much to me as the dust under my feet!" shot the Dark One in insulting reply, his voice seething. "Now give it back!"

At the door, the beauty tossed her head. "No," she stated simply, her voice laced with humor and slipped away into the cool corridors of the castle leaving a fuming Rumpelstiltskin behind.

Furious inwardly and outwardly the Dark One raged in the steam. He had to be somewhere in a few heartbeats, he couldn't quibble with his unwanted guest at the moment. Still, he promised, and snapped his fingers, her little stunt wasn't over. She wouldn't laugh at him or hold his clothes hostage.

Magic washed over him in a wave of purple fog, spiriting the anger Dark One away with the thoughts of women and jackets.

~8~8~

Darkness lay over the world as the Dark One finally arrived back in his sprawling stronghold. The meeting with the king was less than pleasant. His mind, albeit cloaked with his impish talent, fell back to the woman who robbed his of his greatcoat. All through his deals he hadn't forgotten about the nerve of his prey Who in the realms did she think she was?

Even now, he considered angrily, she was probably wearing his jacket like a badge of honor. She had most certainly written some snappish little note in her neat script, taunting him and his bereft jacket lost to her cunning.

A huff of anger, like dragons breath snorted from his flaring nostrils. He could hardly bear the thought. The indignity of losing his jacket to that stubborn woman!

His skinny shoulders slumped under the scarlet cloak he had opted to don instead of his great coat. Forced to wear his second best for a measly rat he could have slain in a moment!

Ripping off the fine scarlet cloak, the fiend tossed the wear into a corner of the great hall. His boots echoed over the stone as he alit the wood in the hearth that replenished every time he left or returned.

Cursing his intruder, the fiend eyed his great hall with fury. Scanning the room, his black depths abruptly came to the table.

Upon the tray left from the morn sat his jacket neatly folded by an expert hand. Padding urgently to the table, the fiend snatched up the jacket and inspected the coat for any malice don to his precious clothing.

His taloned fingers ran over the familiar hide searching for note or rips or stain. Nothing. She had done nothing to his jacket but kept her word. The coat was still clean and in the exact same condition in which he parted.

Holding the jacket close after his inspection, the fiend couldn't help but notice a different smell. No longer did the collar smell of magic and blood. It smelt of _her_.


	4. Uncomfortably Close

The sleeping quarters of the Dark One was a place none in all the world had ever trod save he. Though the entire castle was a gilded, ostentation jumble of castles and keeps all coalesced together, the quarters of Rumpelstiltskin was a true beast's lair to behold. No gold worked of an expert hand adorned the chambers panels. Neither riches nor spoils of all he had collected in his many years of forging deals bedecked his bedroom. For all his wealth and the store of his trinkets hoarded about his palace, his private room was one bereft of the castles glamor.

Dark, shorn tapestries of burgundy lined the walls to keep away the chill of the stone. The tattered tapestries shifted in the breezes of the wild draft, telling the tale of an old, pernicious fury that had hewn them in the shreds that now clung like lacerated flesh to the stone. A window might have rested behind one of the tapestries but the thick woven cloth and the dust kept the revelation of one a mystery that left the room in utter darkness.

A large stone fireplace that miserly gave out the only light sat tucked into a corner of the dreary chamber. Though wood rested in the hearth, the fireplace remained cold and dust ridden for the Dark One preferred to sleep in utter blackness.

Old, stray strands of tawny straw profusely littered the coarse stone floor and led a trail straight from the thick oaken door to where the Dark One rested his weary body after a day of deals.

Nestled in the darkest corner of the room, the fiend's bed sat in mussed disarray. Sleek wolf pelts of charcoal gray, heavy oily black bear skins, silken ruddy fox coats, and others all gathered up making his place of slumber a menagerie of hides. Though there were plenty of large, lavish beds stuffed with feathery down and draped in silken finery in the Dark Castle, no bed of the sort was to be found in his chambers. He lived like a monster of the meanest sort albeit the affluence that surrounded him outside his quarters.

Normally the fiend's room was used only for sleeping. Now however, the chamber was transformed into a war room to scheme in utmost safety whilst his rat ran the stone halls and floors below his feet.

Drastic measures had to be taken, Rumpelstiltskin knew as he vapidly paced in his private chamber. The girl was too cheeky, too daring to be plucked out with fear alone. Already she had shown a remarkable tenacity brave danger and stare down the threats he threw at her.

Rubbing his chin thoughtfully, the Dark One murmured half uttered phrases as he tossed plans out aloud. Parts of words fell from his lips as new plans were conceived and old one forgotten almost immediately after parting from his lips.

He could conjure a pride of lions with his magic to prowl the halls, he supposed, but she'd probably find a way to lock them all up somewhere. He could flood the bottom part of the castle, but guessing her she would at once stalk up the levels and besides he wasn't keen on wasting his magic only to have to clean up after himself!

A black curse spat vilely past his lips as he threw the thoughts away one after another. He couldn't do blatant things against her! The girl recovered far too quickly to obvious ploys. She managed to keep her head whilst probably naked and only feet away from him in a puff of steam. That alone proved her skill at keeping cool in the trickiest of situations. No matter what chore she set herself too, she was always alert and worked without fear.

What was worse, the fiend curled his hands into fists of anger, she was getting used to the castle. Though she hadn't explored even an inkling of his sprawling stronghold, a place that could have fit twenty castles inside with room to spare, she was getting adept with her own hunting grounds and stretching out further and further every day.

Yes, he gnashed and clacked his sharp black and yellow teeth in fury, something had to be done about her before she could think too much of her skills. But what?

Spitting out another curse, he slashed at the wall in his rage. Anger flooded his veins with fire that burned his ichorous black blood as the fury sparked his thoughts. Raking his black nailed claws upon the tapestries he felt the old fabric give under his assault. Threads snapped under his rage just as he felt like snapping the woman's neck.

Gashes ripped out of an unfortunate tapestry as he let his anger flow. The sound of cloth shredding hissed through the air. Tiny burgundy strings drifted to the floor with every strike that helped him think. How was he to best the girl or at the very least throw her off her guard when she could conform herself to everything he tossed at her?

Perhaps, he considered suddenly, perhaps being too obvious was the answer. Freezing, the Dark One let his hand fall to his side, away from his destruction. Being obvious; his mind tossed the thought about like a delicate egg. Perhaps he needed to be much more obvious in showing where he was and where exactly he could go. Maybe he didn't have to try and get the jump on her.

Perhaps the time had come to get uncomfortably close.

~8~8~

Belle sighed tiredly as she lumbered through the labyrinthine halls of the Dark Castle. Stray strands of her russet mane clung to her sweat slick skin a roamed the corridors of what she had aptly named the east wing.

The name, she assumed, was not the eastern wing but the sun rose on the side of the massive keep that she often trod so she dubbed the small slice of her existence a title that most suited the quality of the area.

Rubbing a small portion of her back with one hand, the beauty grimaced as she put the cleaning supplies in their rightful place. The vestibule had been a mighty task to undertake. She had been wary of cleaning the entrance only to find herself trapped if someone, even the Dark One himself entered from the front doors, but her fear shrank after a short period. No one entered the castle. If the Dark One even used the doors she had no knowledge of his coming or goings.

Slowly tossing her head at the thought, the bard allowed a fretful frown to trace her lips. Pity braced her heart like the rim of ice upon the windows. Had none ever come to pay call to the Dark One? Why abide in such a large palace if there would be none to entertain? Certainly the stories all told that none stepped foot into the fiends palace, but she had never thought the thing true. _Someone_ else should have been there, so why was he alone?

The thought was too much for her, Belle admitted in a heavy sigh. Creeping to the kitchen, she shook the contemplation away. She could think about his solitary existence later. Now all she wanted was a warm fire and a me-

"About time you showed back up, Dearie," Rumpelstiltskin greeted loudly in his impish voice before she could open the door.

Surprise rang sonorously through the beauty's head as his words echoed so close to her. Alarmed, Belle jerked away from the handle leading to the kitchen as though the steel was hot to the touch.

Fear galloped in her heart with the tittering of his falsetto pitch so near. Eyes wide as coins she backed away from the door and into the shadows of the wide hall. Back against the cold stone, she pressed as close as she could to the coarse blackness. Her heart lurched painfully in her breast and slammed wantonly against her bosom as though vying to escape. Barely daring to breath she tried to tie in pieces of his presence.

Thoughts flew about her head like bats swooping and diving. Why was he in her place of rest?

"Nothing to say, rat?" A high pitched chuckle cackled from his thin lips in devilish glee.

Belle cleared her throat, struggling with her courage. "I wasn't expecting you," she admitted plainly. "I had no thought you wished the end the game so soon with such a simple maneuver."

"Oh I don't wish to end our playing so soon, rat," confirmed the beast. "All rodents who invade have a nest and I was curious to see where yours was." Rustling echoed from insipidly the kitchen. "From the looks of it my suspicions were correct. Like most rats you made your home next to the larder."

The beauty cringed as his boot steps thudded inside the kitchens. Though she couldn't see him past the double wooden doors she could imagine him walking about. She hadn't kept her impromptu home filthy, but she had not bundled up her things for easy travel either. In the days that had passed without his entry she had made herself quite comfortable.

Stifling her embarrassment and terror, she cleared her throat. Her voice was calm once more, her tone showing no hint of surprise. "I was hungry when I came here. I went to look for food. Your kitchen was the best place to stay at the time. I haven't moved since. I know the rooms are not offered to me and I will not take any more than I need. I don't need a bed. I just need a place to sleep."

"How _noble_ of you," the Dark One sneered disgustedly. "You must think yourself so justified for staying her, eating my food, using my fireplace, my bath house, all because you don't use some things." Did she think her little sense of what was proper and what was not would spare her?

With a deep breath, Belle attempted quell the rising anger in her chest. Now was not the time to get him even more angered and riled. "I don't think I am justified in anything. If you would simply let your logic take hold you would know I have no ill will. I came in desperate need." Her eyes cooled angrily as she stared at the door. She glared at the wood as though seeing the fiend behind the panels. "But I find myself in a home of a man without compassion."

"And I find myself in a rats nest," the fiend parried in his light, uncaring manner. A chuckle found a way past his mouth again. "A rat's nest that has even less supplies than I have mercy."

Using the toe of his black, knee length boot he kicked at the cloak on the stone she used as a bed. A grimace shaded his features at the paltry sight of her supplies all close. Was this all she had? Two books, a cloak, a paltry dagger, paper, ink, quills, some barren sheets of vellum, and a….

"Well what is this?" Rumpelstiltskin asked aloud almost in amusement as his eyes spied the large sheaf of papers all gathered in a large, mismatched pile. Picking up the papers, the fiend leafed through them with a casual air. Writing in her neat writ scrawled all of them, telling of details from her travels.

Belle's heart sank into the icy pool of her stomach. The sound of papers being rifled through drifted easily on the cold draft. Sneaking out a bit from the shadows, the brave woman faced the door. "You put those down!" she demanded. Even without looking she knew what he had come across.

"That's not how this works, Dearie," the fiend trilled in malicious delight. He could feel her wrath from the door. Now he was pulling the strings just as he wished.

Licking a wiry finger, the Dark One turned a page in the mess of papers. "Let's see here. What's this one say?" he teased before he began to read. "I stopped into Nottingham today. The journey was a long one from the edge of the endless sea. I almost had bandit trouble, but they allowed me leave to pass seeing as I hadn't much coin to my name."

"Stop this at once," roared the beauty on the other side of the door. Throwing caution to the wind, she beat a fist on the wood. Red filled her cheeks as he read. Those were her private writings. No one was to read them.

Ignoring her plea, he continued to soak up his vengeance. Her anger was the sweetest honey to his senses. Licking his lips he could almost taste her wrath on his tongue. "When I arrived I found an inn. The people were so wane and reedy I couldn't bear the thought to ask for payment of anything to eat myself. I still told them stories if just to raise their spirits. Perhaps I would have stayed longer had the sheriff of the town not been ogling me from afar. I didn't dare stay the night for I feared the sheriff was up to some mischief. When I finally took my leave I noticed the sheriff and his ilk beating this one man. Apparently he had no money to pay taxes. Using the last of what I had I managed to pay them and to stop the beating of the fellow. He tried to say he would pay me back, but how could I accept any coin if I was staying? I don't see how he could have ever paid. The poor man had a cast on his leg and was cri…."

Staring at the word he couldn't bring himself to say it. Dust filled his throat as his eyes pinioned to the word. Such a tale hit far too close to his heart.

Had she really done something so selfless?

"No more!" screamed the beauty, unaware of why he stopped.

Immediately, the Dark One shook his shock away like a dog shaking off water. Cold callousness refroze over his black heart. Now was not the time to be moved by some tale, especially one told by her. Who knows, perhaps she had made the entire thing up.

Hardening his heart again, he turned to the door as though he could see her. "I will do as I please, rat. This is my castle," he replied coolly like some baron to an upset peasant.

"You've no right to read my private things!" Belle yelled back in affront.

A dangerous scoff tore from his mouth. "I don't have a right? You have no right being in my home!" Abruptly his voice lowered back to the enjoyable timbre as before. 'Therefore." He flipped another page though he had lost the appetite to pry into her life. "I shall read at my leisure."

"You…." Belle fumbled for the words that sparked the tinder in her chest. "You insufferable, incorrigible man! Leave my things be! I don't have much to my name. At least allow me the dignity to keep what little I possess as my own!"

Stomping to the door, the Dark One paused only inches away. "And now." He let the papers drop to the ground. "You know exactly how I feel. Affluent or not, I despise having you here tinkering with my things." A grim smile carved his lips in a feral smile. "I'm bored so I will go now Dearie, but know this. I will no longer allow you the peace and safety of this kitchen. If you stay, every night I shall have the kitchens filled with a flood to the rafters. You will have to find a new nest. Remember who is in control here. I will always force you to move when I think you've stayed in one place too long. The last thing I want you to do is grow comfortable in one certain hole." With a chuckle the fiend snapped his fingers to call the magic to spirit him away. "I'll allow you to gather your things now. Until our next run in, rat."

After a few heartbeats passed, Belle dared to open the door. Peeking open the portal, the beauty dared a quick glance in. Her eyes quickly scanned the bereft larder to see all was as it should have been. She had felt his presence disappear, but whether his leaving was a trick she had no way of knowing.

Once the coast was clear the beauty entered freely. A sigh tumbled despondently from her mouth as she looked at the ruin he had wrought. Her papers were scattered, her inkpot tipped and her cloak mussed and kicked into a corner. He had no regard for her things, no matter how spartan and wanted to make that fact known clearly.

Pulling her lips to one side, Belle kneeled and began to pick up the papers. There would be little rest, she knew. She had to find a place to sleep before the sun fully fell from the sky before she could allow her tired body sleep.

~8~8~

Rumpelstiltskin swaggered proudly into his den after the interaction with the bard. The ploy had gone better than he had hoped! She had been furious, eating right out of his hand as he instilled her with anger. She had gotten carless as he had foreseen. He could have yanked open the door and she would have been oily ash from a fireball hurtled from his hand.

Now, he preened, she knew exactly how it felt. Now, perhaps she would have a better understanding of what he would do and fear would overtake her.

Content with his mischief, the Dark One flopped down upon the pelts of his bed. Closing his eyes, the fiend languished in the darkness that succored his beastliness. Oh yes, his vengeance had been sweet indeed.

Still, something didn't feel quite right. A frown pulled away his victorious grin at the thought. Something wriggled in his heart like a strange new worm, gluttonously eating to the core of his being. The writing he had skimmed rolled back like inky waves in his mind. The tale had been one that sparked an old ember back to life.

He had been like that once; injured, barely any coin to his name. The story brought back memories he had rather have soon forgotten. Indeed he had forgotten them but not everything that was pushed away always remained lost. At the most inopportune time her story brought his misery back into the light.

Fatigued, Rumpelstiltskin let the thoughts sting the reopened wound of his past. He was too tired to do anything at the moment, but, he promised himself inwardly, he would make certain to expend a pile of straw letting the thoughts flee away again on the morrow.

Satisfied, the Dark One allowed sleep to wash over his contentment.

~8~8~

"That horrible, horrid man," Belle cursed lowly as she snaked her way through maze of halls.

Scant torches flickered in their scones along the walls as the beauty made her way through the castle. Cold drafts wailed down the lofty corridors, offering her no solace in her roaming.

He had taken from her the tiniest comfort in his dreaded keep. All she needed was a place to call hers for a little while and he refused to allow her that! She hadn't done a thing to the kitchen save for keep it clean and use for rest and hiding.

The temptation to simply take a room burned hot in her chest, but she refused to allow the fatigue to impair her senses. He wouldn't be right, she swore fervently to herself. She would show him she meant no harm. She would stand by what she claimed even if it meant having nowhere to sleep.

For a moment she dared think to make the great hall her habitation, but shook the thought off as quick as the idea bloomed. The great hall was their neutral ground of sorts. She couldn't destroy that by living there and risking to end the game so soon.

A tired sigh fell from her lips as the thought fled her mind. Sinking down to a row of hard steps in some part of the castle she had yet to explore, the beauty let the last of her strength fall. Exhaustion rippled in her limbs with every action. Her eyes lids drooped despite the rage and sorrow that filled her. She needed sleep before she took on the Dark One for what he had done.

She would get him back, Belle avowed to herself furiously. Crossing her arms tightly about her and leaning her bulk against a cobwebbed ridden wall, the beauty wrapped her cloak against her slender form and slept on the bottom stair of the foreign staircase. Thoughts of plans of her own danced like fireflies through her head as she closed her eyes.

He would pay for that little stunt, Belle swore. He had no idea who he was playing against.


	5. The Revenge of Belle

Rumpelstiltskin was growing suspicious. Three days had passed without much word from his resident, resilient rat. Normally she deigned to drop some note from her sparse store every so often or even speak through the walls a room away when he languished in the great hall. Often times wherever he was the draft brought him snatches of humming or songs that mingled with the chill air like spring perfume. Now, all sat silent once more.

His home sat like an open tomb at the mercy of the wind. The draft carried the spectral cries of the slain and the fires winked and guttered and bickered in the dim halls, but what little life she brought to his stronghold was pent up again and removed from the dank citadel.

Of course, he knew, she was still there. Not only did his magic bar her escape, the snows had not once relented from the mountains jagged fangs. The freezing and biting of the wind denied any flakes escape into slush and the errant flurries they received on a weekly basis only added to the alabaster sea. Midwinter was upon the world with all the savagery the bitter season wrought. If she hadn't escaped at the first snows when she allowed herself in she would have not an inkling of escape with the drifts that occupied his territory now.

Besides for the bard's magical prison enforced by the snows, her presence was not completely spirited away. The meals left for her everyday were always gone with their plates cleaned and at times he could still hear the soft pounding of her feet along the stone mazes of his stronghold as she went off on her hunt of chores or exploration.

She was only quiet, which made the Dark One even more suspicious of his intruder. Silence was never a good thing in any matter when some wrong or trick had been done. Silence normally meant trouble. Being quiet was not like the bard. Normally she broached talk with him at least once a day, if just for a question or a quick witted battle of words. She had to be planning something, he knew… just what?

Anxiousness flared like a small flame in Rumpelstiltskin's heart as he considered his intruder and what plans she deemed to forge in her mind. Though he had only known her nearly a handful of weeks, he could ascertain what type of person she was. She wouldn't let what he had done simply be. Perhaps she would think vengeance was beneath her, but, he knew, that was a far stretch for a hope. This woman, for all her words and bardic nature was a woman of action.

She didn't let matters lie. If he attacked with some ploy she would try to return his move with one greater than his.

Such was their game.

Dark, scolding laughter scoffed from the Dark One's mouth at the thoughts that swirled about his unwanted, irksome guest. Scaling rapidly down the dark stairs to the great hall, the fiend rebuked himself for such worried contemplations that hounded his thoughts. Such anxiousness was beneath him.

Pride filled his gray-gold hide like warmth from the crown of his head to his boots. He was the Dark One. What did he have to fear from one, magic-less slip of a woman who could conjure a few good thoughts now and again?

Nothing, he reminded himself easily. A proud, smug grin traced his lips as he cantered down the stairs. He had nothing to fear from her.

All the rat could hope was to land another fortunate blow and he was dubious she could do that. Whatever she attempted he would see her action coming and either allow himself to be affected or simply step aside. She would see all her tricks in vain compared to his superior tactile mind.

Chuckling in his tittering way the beast shoved open the door to the great hall. Foolishness painted a part of his heart not filled with confidence. He certainly felt foolish for all his wariness over one woman. He was worried for no-

All words dropped from his tactile mind as he stepped into his great hall. Shock transmuted his black ichor to ice in his veins and stilled his heart. Claws holding on the edge of the door, the fiend used the sturdiness to keep him balanced. His black eyes roved over the ornate room in stricken awe. The entire chamber had been turned on its head!

The large oaken table in the center had been turned to width instead of length. The chairs had all been rearranged so that the chair by the fire was on the opposite side of the table. His trinkets sat in complete disarray. Antique vases sat where crowns once gathered dust, where ancient swords once hung now dangled golden chokers and where troves of jewels once languished in the base of the many cabinets were all jumbled together in a puzzling menagerie.

Looking at the topsy-turvy disarray for a moment he was struck dumb. Simply blinking he tried to process what she had done. Then, like the calm before the storm, quiet was torn asunder and the gale struck.

"Rat!" Rumpelstiltskin's voice resounded like dark, lurid thunder across the stone. The tapestries shivered upon the walls and the mismatched items on ivory pillars teetered perilously in the rumble of his fury.

"No need to scream, Dark One. I can hear you quite well," Belle lightly assured him from behind the typical door she spoke from. Humor hugged her cheerful tone as she paced in the dark shadow of the corridor that led to the great hall.

A smile captured her lips as she radiated in the anger of his voice. Satisfaction filled her soul to hear him scream as she had wanted to a few days before. She had been expecting his fury all morning and gladly welcomed his ire for recompense of what he had done to her.

Like any good hunter she had planned her trap well. She had learned his path and that was where she set her net.

Rage pulsed like an aura of magic about the Dark One. Her calming tone, like a hot poker to his side, made him even more furious. "What have you done!" he seethed as he strode rapidly through his great hall.

"Giving you a piece of your own medicine," the beauty parried tersely. "You tamper with my things I tamper with yours."

A low curse spat incoherently from his mouth as he examined his precious things. "Childish," he muttered quietly then raised his voice. "You are childish!"

What was the point of moving around all his things? If she hadn't stolen anything, then what reason did she have to suddenly redecorate his great hall? Was she just trying to drive him mad?

"No, not childish." Sneaking a bit up to the door she addressed him clearer. Her brilliant sapphire orbs pinioned upon the wood as though she could see past the barrier to the upset fiend. "It's to prove you are not pulling my strings in this game of yours. My will, my thoughts, are my own. You may think you can guess things about me, but that works both ways."

Foolishness, the Dark One cursed inwardly as he neared a jumble of his things, utter foolishness. Kneeling down, the beast picked through a hoard of items she had meshed together in a dizzying array of jewels and baubles.

How dare she touch his things!

Handling a two thousand year old ceramic egg gilded in gold and bedecked with large many faceted gems, the Dark One inspected the ostentatious prize for any stolen jewels encrusted upon its shell as he spoke. "Brave words, but nonsense," he huffed angrily. "You will never know me."

"I already know some important things about you, Dark One," Belle explained with the utmost assurance. "You see I know you are a man of habit. Every morning you rise, drink your tea, meander about your dark home, go to reaches I have yet to even learn, brood, spin, or spin and brood and start the entire process over when the sun rises past the mountains again." A bit of mischief cut through her light tone. "You can't stand for your routine to be thrown out of pace. You like things just so and it galls you to the very core of your being when things are not as you had them."

For all his supposed advantages he showed himself vulnerable so easily in her eyes. His flaws could be picked up at one meeting, at least for her. He was selfish, prideful, nearly harmfully so, and yet still cloaking something behind his tittering giggles and airs. He was a puzzle to be sure, but one that would simply take a little more time to solve.

Anger filled Rumpelstiltskin's heart like gorge rising in his throat. Fury, burning hot erupted from his soul in spurts of scalding bile. He hated, absolutely hated when she had a point and even more so when he couldn't see it coming.

Gripping the delicate egg in a vice, the fiend squeezed until shattering the expensive bibelot. Rare jewels and shards of gold tumbled to the stone floor in a shower of riches that stained his cloths. Fury rumbled in his voice. "Which was why you changed the room," he stated wryly as her trapped dawned upon him.

She hadn't meant to be childish, he knew now. She was trying to make a point.

"And you so graciously proved me right." Victory hemmed Belle's lovely timbre.

She was right, he knew, though the thought galled the very marrow in his ancient bones with the fact. Living for centuries he was a man who enjoyed his routine. Routine made things predictable. He liked predictable. Predictable made his plans fall in line just so.

Coming home to the same predictable castle that had sat the same way for eons was a comfort. Perhaps, he pondered grimly, he had gotten too comfortable and she knew that.

"I did nothing of the sort!" he snapped back, refusing to admit her point. Stomping to the door she so often hid behind, he jerked open the portal to send her scattering. At least, he figured he could do that much against her.

Stepping over the threshold, he took a single step before his world took another surprise. Cold water sloshed over his head in a shocking torrent of frigid wet. A bucket, precariously placed over the door tipped perfectly and landed right on his head.

The Dark One gasped at the frozen shock as his world turned from the shadows to the inside of a bucket. Water oozed down his tunic and soaked his dirty brown hair, giving him a cool dose against his rage. Sitting lopsided on his head, the bucket dribbled water still over him as though to taunt.

"Now that," Belle laughed from somewhere down the hall, "was me being childish."

Part of her knew she shouldn't have pulled such a trick, but he was far too predictable when upset and by the heavens above did he infuriate her. He had had it coming, she knew. After the stunt he pulled he should have been lucky it hadn't been old dishwater she doused on him!

Standing their cold and wet, the fiend stared into the black of the bucket. His breath came in low vapid intakes as he let the shock of what she had done wane. Slowly taking the bucket off his head, he let the wooden tool drop to the floor.

His eyes searched the blackness for her. She was no longer lurking nearby but he could feel her eyes upon him from somewhere. Wiping cold water from his face, the Dark One stared hatefully at the corridor.

A sneer twisted his lips as he sputtered out the wet. "I bet you thought that was funny," he spat acidly in a hiss.

"Well we are playing a game," Belle parried expertly, her tone sweetly innocent despite her knowing all too well the truth. "I thought having fun was the point."

Kicking the bucket next to his right foot, the Dark One expended his rage upon the wood. Tumbling down the dark corridor, the bucket hurtled against a wall. Smashing against the stone, the old bucket cracked like an egg. Splinters of wood littered the floor in a wet mess, telling of his rage.

"You will not be half as so free with your words when I rip out your tongue!" Rumpelstiltskin threatened.

In reply, the beauty only laughed. The pleasant sound drifted upon the air like perfume as she disappeared to her new hideaway.

Turning on his heel back the way he had come, the Dark One glowered angrily. Irritations and fury mingled freely upon his face so that it was hard to tell which was which. The girl was beyond infuriating, beyond tolerable!

Still, despite of his fury, the fiend felt a smile pull at his face.

~8~8~

"That woman," Rumpelstiltskin growled like a curse as he stomped furiously into the bate house beneath the Dark Castle.

Anger hummed against his flesh as though he was charged with electricity. The gall of the woman!

Jerking a faded brown towel nestled on a wooden shelf and a dark leather tunic the fiend stripped off the wet cloth on him and sat by the steaming pool. The fabric clung to his body as he peeled off the sopping tunic. Angrily tossing the brown attire in a corner he scrubbed at his wet form with the dry cloth. Curses spat like arrows from his mouth as he roughly dried himself with the coarse towel. Who did that chit think she was?

Furiously scrubbing at his wet hair, the Dark One plotted darkly in his ancient heart. He would… he would…. The thoughts of revenge fled from his mind as he peered over the rim of the waters.

Looking down at the waters of the bathing pool, the fiend stared at his reflection. Droplets of water dripped vapidly from the ends of his brown hair rippling the placid bath but keeping the image.

Shock lingered upon the lines of Rumpelstiltskin's scaled visage. His eyes were wide and twinkling; far more like his old self before the Dark One. What was more, he couldn't wipe the grin from his face.

Abruptly a spurt of laughter tumbled merrily from his mouth. He looked ridiculous he knew, staring at himself, but there was something highly comical about that.

Like a flood breaking past a dam, howls of merriment gushed past his mouth without control. Roars of laughter shook the chamber as he, for the first time in a very long time, laughed genuinely at himself.

No one had ever dared do something so puerile to him before as the Dark One. Serious and needy was all he ever received from the mortals he interacted about and annoyed. He was not to be trifled with and yet she blatantly trifled with him, giving no quarter. The fact tickled him to say the least.

Rumpelstiltskin, if nothing else he could at least respect her daring. There was no shortage of courage, or foolishness, in her. She would be interesting in this game for as long as he wished for their challenge to continue.

"That was a good one, rat," he remarked in a deathly whisper muffled by the cloying mist. "A good one indeed."


	6. Too Far

"Time to move again, rat!" Rumpelstiltskin voice tittered in gleeful echo throughout the hall Belle momentarily called home.

Shivers trailed down the tired beauty's spine as she jerked away from a solid slumber upon the stone steps. Grogginess that washed her eyes and muddled her head cleared like mist against the summer's sun as his lurid voice boomed over her. Blood pounded and crashed like waves through her ears as she gathered her things in half of a second.

Stuffed into her burgundy leather satchel all she owned in the world sat ready and waiting. For the moment he struck again with his magic's.

Grabbing the pack by the frayed strap, the beauty scrambled from the wide step she been sleeping on. The cloak she used a blanket, clutched tightly in her grip, fluttered and snapped in the draft as she bounded through the darkness of the hall without delay. Her footsteps thundered down the massive corridor like his voice as she raced for her life.

Behind her a familiar roar of water began to grow in her ears. The cool mist of liquid dampened her hair and kissed her exposed skin as she tried to outrace the wave he conjured by magic and sent flooding after her. She couldn't afford for her feet to flag with such a churning mass of water behind. Blood galloping like wild horses the beauty pushed on in her wild race to escape.

Waters tinted with a faint hue of purple like his magic hounded her as wolves chase a lame doe. Fierce bashing breakers of ivory foam sloshed and crashed against the stone walls as though trying to push the stone away. The water was set upon engulfing her and turning her world into a blackened vortex of watery breathlessness.

Abruptly as the water was about to overtake her, the bard shot quickly to her left to flee from the cataract. Diving into a deep alcove, Belle clung to the rounded wall like lichen aged upon the rock. Pressing her forehead against the cold stone until the rough grains dug into her flesh, the beauty she shut her eyes tight. Her muscles tensed like steel springs as she pushed her body as far into the wall as she could.

Water gushed down the hall, alive with magic and pursuing a course that she was no longer on. The enchanted water seemed not to notice the dip she had taken to avoid the purplish waves.

Belle breathed hard as the enchanted water receded, unable to claim the beautiful prey it so desired. The damp burgundy runner at her feet was matted with dust that had become dirt and was littered with trinkets washed out in the flash flood.

The waves wouldn't have killed her, Belle knew impeccably well, but it would have been a strenuous inconvenience to go to the bath house wash out her leathers and dry off. The first time he had pulled such a trick she had been caught unawares. The water had roared over her and boiled with activity as she struggled before lessening and falling away leaving her gasping and trembling.

She had been miserable squishing around in wet cloths and shivering in the cold all the while the Dark One sat victorious in his plot.

Since then and since the incident with the bucket he had used the trick of flooding her sleeping space, though without success, on a regular basis. Every time she laid her head down now, she lived with the thought overhead he would come and bring down his trap.

"Must you?" Belle screamed to him from wherever he was preforming his magic.

A giggle echoed eerily about the damp corridor. "I must. Besides isn't this _fun_?" he mocked. Of course he always liked to use her words against her. Anything to make her blood boil he would use to his advantage.

"There comes a time when a joke isn't funny anymore," the beauty parried dryly. Stepping out she eyed the hall up and down. Her boots squished like mud upon the gold trimmed, burgundy runner. "Not that it was funny to start with mind you," she grimaced.

"You chose to poke the beast Dearie," the fiend trilled laconically. "You must now deal with the consequences."

Magic rose from the carpet like steam as the words fled his tongue. Sensuous tendrils of damson coiled to the vaulted rafters leaving the hall as dry as it had been.

With a last giggle the find departed leaving the hall in the same condition before his watery magic.

Shaking her head, the beauty tried hard to stifle a smile. Despite his actions she found herself always far less angry than she should have been. "Of all the men in all the world…." She let the words fall uncertain where they had come from to sneak from her lips.

~8~8~

That had gone decidedly well, Rumpelstiltskin congratulated himself as he stepped into his great hall. A victorious smile etched his thin lips as he swaggered happily throughout the large gilded chamber. Elation filled his heart like the breath of life bursting within. He hadn't even had breakfast yet and he had already made her run again.

Chuckles tittered from his grinning mouth at the thought of her scrambling away. Her fury had been wondrous to hear as well as her ire. That was a very good start to the morning indeed.

Flicking his hand carelessly to the massive stone hearth, the fiend prodded magic to his bidding. Tongues of fire leapt from the wood into a cheery blaze. Summoning water and tea into the kettle upon the table, the beast settled back into his normal seat.

Relaxing in the plush, leather chair as the water heated, the Dark One let his victory coat him. Her little trick of turning the room upon its head had been clever enough, he could admit, but one thought and magic arranged all again. Now she had to face being moved whenever he fancied her to relocate.

His grin widened at the thought. As cunning as her tricks might be he could perform better, larger shenanigans. Bolstered by the thought, Rumpelstiltskin poured his tea into the cup he had chipped those long weeks ago. Though he had meant the cup for a symbol, some manner of fondness grew in himself for the cracked trinket, he admitted inwardly as he inspected the treasure. He used no other cup, nor wished to.

Cupping the little cracked trinket in both hands, the fined let the warmth from the tea warm his hands. The fragrant steam pawed at his gray-gold flesh as he sniffed the brew appreciatively and let his mind drift to pleasant things. His heart was glad, he had his tea, and there was a furious woman somewhere in his castle. What more could he desire?

Oh yes, he laughed inwardly as he brought the cup to his lips, it was good to have power over that chit of a woman.

Sipping his tea, the fiend sputtered at the sudden, unusual taste. Hot tea spewed from his mouth as the off flavor of tea stung his taste buds.

"You really should check the kettle before adding water," Belle's voice echoed in the room.

Vigorously wiping his lips with the back of his tunic sleeve, trying to rid himself of the terrible flavor, the fiend leapt to his feet. His eyes searched the stone wall viciously. If looks could kill, the beauty would have been a pile of oily char. "What did you do to that, rat!"

"Pepper and salt I found in the kitchens," the beauty explained. Laughter, though not cruel, mocking laughter echoed melodiously about the great hall. "How unobservant of you as to not to notice, Dark One."

She had a thought he used magic. Even without seeing the beauty knew no one could have tea so fast. In a moment of daring and epiphany she had taken a chance and had managed to strike again.

A dark curse spat past the Rumpelstiltskin's lips in a viperous hiss. Anger always stung his heart at the revelation of any foible he had. "My observations have been on other things, Dearie," he barked darkly in a dangerous chortle. Magic tinted his fingertips a cruel purple hue. Turning about he aimed at another door. "Such as learning you have the skill to throw your voice."

Realization struck the beauty like a striking serpent as the words rang about her. Belle had only a second to move before she felt magic beneath her feet. Steam rose from the cold stone in steady streams. The stones behind her turned a dull orange as heat filled the hall.

This time he wasn't using water to flush her out, Belle knew instinctively by the sweltering heat, but fire. Gouts of flames shot from the stone as Belle raced for her life all over again.

Heat pulsed behind her as she bounded like a deer being chased by the hunter. Bright orange fangs of flame erupted on the stone steps making every breath treacherous. One misstep and her world would be enveloped in flames.

Sweat beaded the bard's brow as she fled from her life. Dark amber tendrils of her tresses fluttered like a retreating banner in the draft. Her breath came in short gasps the heat seemed to snatch away. Panting crazily, the brave woman dared not to stop. He had over reacted far too much this time and she was to pay the penalty.

From the other side of the great hall, the Dark One forced the flames just a step behind. They weren't real he knew precisely. The heat they let off felt real, their flames certainly looked real but the burn was nonexistent. Faire fire, as it was known, had no other affects other than to make those who knew not of the conjured flames dash away.

For a moment when he had cast the fire he had wished to make the flames real but disbanded the notion. He wasn't keen on losing his toy yet. Besides, her trick had been no great thing. Certainly she had made him appear foolish which could not be allowed, but nothing so great that warranted the thievery of her life so soon.

No, he was only going to make her suffer fear and create the same foolishness in her he felt for not checking the tea kettle for anything added.

Oblivious to the false nature of the flames the beauty doggedly plodded on, not daring to pause. Gasps heaved from her burning lungs as she sprinted for her life. She was used to the trials of running from danger, but spurts of speed was her style, not miles of stairs and corridors that twisted and turned and led to foreign places.

Still, Belle gritted her teeth and pushed on, what choice did she have? Either she ran or the flames would devour her flesh.

As the thought left her mind, disaster struck. Turning a sharp corner she'd never delved upon before, the beauty skirted to close to the stone wall adorned with a knight's suit of armor. The entire hall was flanked with plate attired manikin gathering dust upon stands and all were equipped with their weapons.

Pain filled Belle's world as she ducked into the hall felt the flesh on her arm give way. Plate clanged and jangled and mashed together in a lurid, sonorous collision as she knocked over the first stand to her right.

Ears strained, the Dark One waited to her shout in anger over the fake fire at any moment. She couldn't keep her pace up forever, he knew, soon the faire fire would overwhelm her. A large grin marred his features in expectation of her wrath. Then she would feel as foolish as he.

Abruptly, the crash of metal and steel echoed through the keep like thunder. A wounded cry, not a shout of fury reached his ear. In the beat of a heart, the fiend smile fell. That was a cry of pain and agony, not one of rage.

Something jerked in the fiend heart as the cry rose to the rafters and died upon the draft. Something lost and nearly dead in his heart rankled to life.

"Bard?" he called out tremulously. Concern etched his features instead of impish glee. "Bard?" his voice roared.

Snapping his talons, the fiend arrived at the point of her accident in an instant. In a snap he forced the lowly guttering torches of the hall to brighten. Light drenched the scene to give him an idea of what had occurred.

The first knight in a long row to the right lay toppled in complete madness. The helmed head of the manikin had tumbled off to lie at the foot of another on the left side of the suits. The pauldrons where dented from the crash to the stone and one of the oiled leather straps had snapped in the crash leaving the suit in lopsided disarray.

A light, relieved grin spread across his lips at the sight of the accident. The girl was nowhere around. She had merely been clumsy. Perhaps she hadn't answered because she was embarrassed at her tumble. That was all, he assured himself, merely embarrassed.

Turning on his heel, the fiend started to leave from the hall. Dark scolding bit at his heart for the sudden entrance to the corridor. What did he care if she had run into trouble? He should have stayed in the great hall.

Before he could turn himself fully the glint of steel caught his gaze. Reversing his step, the fiend padded slowly to the piece kicked forward in the hall. His heart thudded like a large drum beating against his chest as the sudden realization struck him. The armor had all been there, he recalled, the only that seemed missing had been the sword.

Walking further into the corridor, the dark one espied the sword. The blade had been accidently kicked or had slid into a darkened corner. Nearing the weapon, the fiend found the side spotted with dulled blood. His eyes, almost numb in their sockets looked up to see spots of ruby ichor making a trail leading past the hall.

~8~8~

Belle hissed sharply as she dabbed warm water over the offending wound in her arm by the steaming pool in the fiend bath house. Dark splotches of her blood dripped in the pool in ruby medallions as she worked the still slowly oozing arm.

Patting at the laceration with a strip of off white cloth, the beauty stoically held in a scream. The water would help, but anything upon the gash hurt. The leather over her arm had kept the blade from going in deep, but the length of the wound made up for that. The long cut was an angry red around the edges and throbbed without relent. Deep, but long, the cut stretched for nearly nine inches in her rough estimation. From the elbow down the line was a long streak of red that seemed to go one forever.

The accident had been one she hadn't seen until far too late, she knew as she went back to the moment in her mind. The sharp turn had led her right into the sword on a suit of armor which had caused the cut.

Doused in a world of pain, she had clutched her arm at the sudden hurt. The fallen armor entangled in her legs and she careened to the floor. Blood oozed in bright ruby from the wound in her right arm as she held the cut extremity. Before her, a sword upon the knight stand was stained with her blood.

Without really a thought to her arm, the beauty had curled up tight for the end. Surely the fire would engulf her and the cut would be nothing. Closing her eyes in a vice, Belle had tensed waiting for the fire to wash over her. A cry strangled again past her lips as she had felt the flames slither across her form.

Opening her eyes she saw the fire as an allusion. He had only meant to scare her. Relief mildly filled the beauty as the fire dimmed and died. To know she would not be engulfed in flames was a jubilant welcome. The fire hadn't been real in the least; however, looking down at the blood on her arm, the beauty had grimaced. The cut was real.

Knowing he would come to investigate, she had painfully picked herself up. Once she stumbled and another time she kicked the sword further into the shadows. Cradling her arm she had made herself to the bath house where she could tend the wound in the safety of the steam.

And there she found herself with a wound she could not even treat with simple care. She had no mixtures to clean the wound save water and nothing to bind the appendage to help the healing.

Dabbing at the wound again, the beauty let forth a low curse she had picked up on her travels. She should have been paying more attention. The exact thing she used against him she had inadvertently used upon herself.

"Bard!" Rumpelstiltskin shouted luridly through the keep, stealing her thoughts away. Traversing through the massive castle steps that led to the bathhouse the fiend. He knew she was there, but was she well enough to answer?

Without even stopping, the beauty cleaned the edges of the wound again. Any other time her heart would have stopped in mid-beat, but her arm throbbed too much to care. Besides, she figured, with nothing to truly clean the wound the gash would most likely infect and she would die of fever or sickness.

Sighing, the beauty pressed at the wound again. "Yes, Dark One," she replied calmly, her voice forcefully controlled.

Stopping in the midst of the fog, the fiend felt anger rise all over again. The little light he felt before flickered and died away leaving the beast through and through. If she could talk then perhaps she wasn't severely hurt, though even if she was he didn't care, he reminded himself sternly.

"What happened?" he demanded to know, his voice a callous growl.

Belle cringed and patted the wet fabric over the top of the wound as best she could manage. "I cut myself," came the solemn reply.

"Yes, yes, I know that," the fiend snapped succinctly. "How?"

"Why does it matter?" the beauty shot back icily. "Worried about me oh Dark One?"

Him worried? Even in her pain the bard bit back a ridiculous laugh. Worry was perhaps the last thing on his mind, especially when that worry was about her.

He scoffed. "Don't be foolish, of course not," the fiend bit back.

Taking a deep breath, the bard pushed her stubbornness away. There was no harm in telling him she figured, her pain dulling her rebellion. "I ran into the suit of armor and the blade escaping your fake fire."

"That'll infect then if you don't clean it right, Dearie," Rumpelstiltskin stated uncaringly.

A huff fell from her lips as she awkwardly wrung out the grayish, blood stained cloth into the pool. Grayish-garnet water tainted the pool before clearing again. "Your point, Dark One?"

"All sorts of nasty things popping up like moss on your arm, it'll be painful," the find spat menacingly.

He knew firsthand what infection was like. After crippling himself he had never died from the disease none could treat. The ill had sealed his fate of never walking strait again, a last signature to permanently mark his cowardice.

Belle flinched at the thought, her heart fluttering with trepidation. The images were certainly less than pleasant to fathom. Sighing, she forced the worry away. "Going to let disease do your work?"

He probably would, Belle considered. He would probably savor her growing weaker, falling into delusion and becoming a pallid shell of nothing. Every day he would hunt her and her steps would get slower and her mind fogged. That was a death the Dark One would enjoy.

"I came here to see the damage, rat," growled the fined distempered. "I wanted to see what your clumsiness has wrought."

Surprise flickered like a light of hope in Belle's heart. Letting the cloth drop she stared at the wound. Though the thought seemed futile to voice aloud she couldn't help the words bursting from her lips. "Can you help me?"

"I'd be a poor Dark One if I could not," he scoffed into the fog.

Belle's brow furrowed suspiciously. Why would he do such a thing or even allude to aid? Why had he come down to see her misery at all? Peering into the heavy opaque mists, the beauty was careful to keep her arm up. "Why would you offer me any sort of aid?"

"Like I said, rat you don't know me," the beast explained, his tone clipped and chilled like a lance of sharp ice. "If this is my game then I shall not allow you to escape the easy way."

Anger, despite her wound burned a hole in the beauty's heart. "Still about your game Dark One?"

"Of course, Dearie," he chuckled whimsically. "I won't allow you the satisfaction of a death I did not deal."

"A beast even in kindness," she growled.

"It's not a kindness, rat," the fiend voice grew sharp. "I still want to play and I can't do that with a broken toy."

Pride poisoned fangs struck her heart towards his uncaring words. "Then no, I don't need your help." She was no toy, she could decide for aid or not. He would not treat her like a doll in the hands of a destructive toddler.

"Show me," Rumpelstiltskin growled dangerously through the mist.

Belle tossed her head stubbornly. "No."

"Rat."

"No."

"Woman!" the Dark One voice brooked no argument.

Hot, scalding tears warmer than the waters welled like stars in Belle's eyes with weariness. Why did he want to see? Couldn't he just leave her be? "Just go away." Her voice cracked.

"Fine. If you will not show me your arm, take this, you stubborn fool," the Dark One spat. "Hold your hand out into the mists."

Tenuously, Belle pushed her good arm out into the fog. She didn't know why she decided to trust him, but the pain in her arm was not to be denied. If he gave her a choice she would accept but she refused to play the part of some broken property.

Following his voice, the beauty shifted her arm until something grabbed her hand. Her heart leapt in her chest from the sudden touch of another. Forcing herself not to jerk away, the beauty felt something heavy and soft be put roughly into her hand.

Her fingertips brushed against the Dark One's softly as she took the gift. The hand that met hers felt of different flesh. Though she couldn't place it there was something off about his skin.

Pulling back, the beauty marveled at his impromptu gift. A small white pot and bandages under the container put in her hand. Relieved for the tincture and bandages, the beauty gathered the items close to her chest.

"The salve will balm your wound," the Dark One barked viciously, every inch the angry beast. "Be glad I have chosen to kill you by my hands alone!"

With that, before the beauty could gather herself to thank him, the fiend was gone, leaving the bard with the balm and a confused mind.


	7. A Lull

Belle allowed a small sigh to escape her half smiling lips as she bounded down a long row of stairs leading to a new quarter of the massive keep. Dim torches flickered their dull orange tongues insipidly in their stone scones, drawing paltry light into the dark, cobwebbed flight. To others the dank, black descent of stairs leading to whatever chambers the Dark One crafted in his home, might have been terrifyingly ominous, but she had gotten far too used to the dank and dark and eerie in his stronghold.

No longer did the streaks of dull blood swathed upon a tapestry bereft wall give her pause, neither the ghastly wails of the draft keening through the porous rock to unknown places of his keep. She knew the darkness of the castle and accepted the haunts fearlessly.

Keeping her left hand on the dust encrusted wall to guide her, the beauty raced confidently down into the darkness. Normally she would have held her dagger in her right hand, but her opposite appendage was still out of use. Her right arm was bandaged tight with soft whit muslin that kept her long, jagged wound protected whilst the tincture the Dark One had given to her did the job of healing.

A week had barely passed and already the skin had knit together seamlessly and healed leaving only a white pinkish scar that was fading into her skin little by little. At first sight of the cut she thought to bare an ugly scar there upon her arm all her life, but with the potent salve he had offered there would only be a pale, long scar to tell the tale, if one at all.

As the end of the stairs came to dim light, Belle jerked to a halt at the bottom of the long, narrow staircase. Exhausted, the beauty greedily sucked in musty air. Breath bellowed from her lungs, filling her body with the pleasant burn of cold draft.

Fatigued, the bard leaned her head back against the cool stone wall, her entire body heaving in exertion. The chill of the rock eased her frantic pace as she made her body calm. Normally she was wary whenever exploring new territory but for the past few days she had been nearly a blur with her delving to the unexplored realms of his ostentatious palace.

Though her arm had left her in a bind, she had not been idle in her injury. Little by little she expanded her knowledge of the seemingly endless, sprawling castle, searching out new routes and new hideaways to aid in keeping her life. Everywhere foreign she turned she expected some trick.

The Dark One rarely let her go to a new area of his sprawling citadel without some tittered warning or jest. Normally he had some hijinks awaiting in an alcove or a shaded crevice to stop her heart but he had been lax since her clash with the blade. His clever antics had come to a suspicious halt. No tricks had been forthcoming from his hands for days now, producing more wariness wherever she trod.

The clemency wouldn't continue, Belle knew imperatively, but at least, she wagered, he was allowing her to heal up before more of his cunning traps could be laid to best her.

Though the Dark One's mercy was gratefully received given the state of her arm, his relenting confused the beuaty to no small degree. Why would he not press his advantage? He didn't have to end her to play a few of his tricks but none were laid before her.

Perhaps he wanted her at the peak of heath to continue their game, the beauty contemplated thoroughly, but abandoned the notion as quickly as the though struck her mind. There was a deeper meaning there other than fair play, she knew, but what?

Troubled by the thought, Belle continued her trek through the new labyrinth of corridors mazed out before her. Her mind danced with the supposing and thoughts that swarmed like bees over a field of wild flowers. What would provoke him to show such mercy?

The legends of the Dark One told of many things, she knew quite well, but never mercy. He did not engage in such indulgences to those that crossed him. There were tales of him turning people into snails and roses and candle holders all for prodding his wrath. No, mercy was not something the Dark One was of report to have. So why endow clemency upon her?

Abruptly, her thought was cut short. The creaking of a wheel echoed dully about Belle's senses making her stop in her tracks. Instinctively flinching, the beauty lunged into the nearest dark corner. Pressing close to the stone, her heart beat a rapid tattoo as her mind worked out what the sound was. The creaking squeaked and groaned in a repetition occasionally interjected by a rhythmic, light thud.

Relief sighed from her lips in a silent exhale of gratitude as her mind recalled the now all too familiar sound.

He was only spinning again.

The sound, like most, carried through the extensive citadel by the prevailing drafts that hounded the vaulted rafters and hewed at the coarse rock. Since the second day of her arrival she had heard the forlorn sound that filled the keep and stilled the spectral wailing's if only for a time. The spinning wheel tucked away in a corner in the great hall was the perpetrator of the shrill squeaks that reminded her of a rusty cart axle.

When she had first heard the noise her curiosity had been enflamed, but the matters of surviving had washed over the conflagration of her inquisitiveness. She hadn't had time, nor the will to ask her hunter and would be murderer about his odd past time, but now that they were in a neutral ground of sorts until her arm healed fully perhaps he would be accommodating to comply to a query or two.

Nodding her head happily at the thought, the beauty turned away from her exploration and dashed up the way she had come to go and seek out the Dark One at his spinning.

~8~8~

An insipid grimace carved Rumpelstiltskin's features as he languidly pulled at the golden thread slowly working out of his aged spinning wheel. The spinning wheel, his last true possession of his old life was an ancient thing.

Rough cut by some backwoodsman's hands as a present for a new wife or made by some poor craftsman, the spinning wheel was nothing in the way of extraordinary. Somewhere along the way two kindly spinsters had inherited or bought the wheel and taught a very small boy his only skill he had ever been proud of.

The dull brown grain was rough and coarse though hundreds years at the wheel had sanded down the rim into a smooth surface. The century's old metal parts that kept the rickety wheel together were forged of dented, now green oxidized brass that creaked in agony at every movement. Rust flecked the base of the pin shaped spindle upon the end of the wheel though the tip was as silver as the day the needle had been placed.

Though most of his old things from his old life as a poor man Rumpelstiltskin had thrown away, his spinning wheel was one he cherished. Memories of his life was ingrained into every fiber of the ancient light cured wood and the rickety parts that made the large thing spin. With every turn of the wheel the blur of the spoke could produce an image of his old life. And yet, the spinning took away his memories as well. The hypnotic cycle spun away his pain that came harnessed to his remembering and turned them into a thread he could spool away in the back of his ancient mind.

The thread of his memories often became undone, but spinning always tied the cord of the frayed thoughts and put them back upon the bobbin.

Though he oft spun for the sake of forgetting, at the moment he spun because of something, _someone_, else.

Belle. Her name brought a disapproving frown to his lips. If ever he needed his skill to spin his thoughts into work he could comprehend it was against his resident rat. The woman was a mass of puzzling wool that needed to be spun into a thread he could understand!

She was a grand distraction in the boredom of the slow winter days, but she continued to be an enigma. She gave back as good as she got, but she never aimed to be cruel. Nor was she. She was brave, this bard, though her demise was an imminent thing hanging over her head for the day his pleasure of the game dwindled.

She didn't try to coax or wheedle him into her freedom. She didn't try to appease him in any manner. She used teeth not tears, and a bite she had! Her tricks angered him to no end, but he found himself looking back whilst nested down in the dead of night and smiling as the memories of the day coursed through his brain.

What did she think of him now, he wondered carefully. They had gotten perilously close a few nights ago and now no tricks were being tossed his way. Surely she must have felt his skin those nights ago when he handed her the balm. For a perceptive, cunning woman that she was there was no way she missed that his flesh was rough and scaled. Had his odd snake-flesh frightened her into not daring another jest?

Oh what did it matter what she thought! The fiend rebuked himself furiously and gave the wheel a vicious tug. Frustration hummed along his blood and crackled off his gray-gold flesh like lightening. What she thought of him or pictured in her mind was completely irrelevant. The only time she would see him was when she was about to be wiped off the face of the realms.

"Why do you spin so much?" Belle inquired abruptly from her side of the door to the great hall.

So there she was, the Dark One remarked inwardly. He had been curious where his rat had wandered off too. Giving the wheel a smooth turn, the fiend huffed imperiously. "None of your business," he grunted brusquely.

"I meant no harm in asking," the beauty returned serenely, her voice slightly muffled through the barrier. "I know the wheel means something precious to you. That's why I haven't touched it. I just wanted to know why."

Perching a curious brow but not stopping the cycle, the fiend stared at the door. "Oh?" his voice sounded less gruff, "And how do you know this wheel means something, anything, to me?"

"It's the only that that isn't gilded with gold in there." Laughter, soft and sweet, echoed about the great hall.

A smile twitched involuntarily upon Rumpelstiltskin's lips and he was glad she couldn't see his indulgent grin. "I collect many odd things, Dearie. A spinning wheel doesn't even come close to the more bizarre oddities of my castle."

That was all too true. There were many things in his keep she had yet to see if she lived long enough to discover the dusty rooms and hidden stairwells. His spinning did not compare to other oddities that gathered dust in his collections of curios and trinkets.

"But the wheel is the only one you use," Belle returned gently. "And you use it frequently. I'm lulled to sleep by the creaking almost every night. I even hear that little thump where the wood wasn't cut just quite right."

The wheel was the only thing that was not littered with dust. It was no forgotten bibelot in his keep, but something he care for.

"Perceptive, perceptive," he fiend trilled in a soft chuckle.

Scuffling rustled by the door she hid behind. In his minds eyes, the beast could see his intruder sitting by the threshold with her upper arm pressed against the door and making herself comfortable in her usual spot. This time, unlike many, the thought of her languishing in the shadows of his home was not so unpleasant as they had been in the past.

"But am I wrong?" she challenged though no hostility rang in her timbre. Only curiosity and understanding hemmed her voice. Nothing more.

A growl rumbled faintly from the Dark One lips. He could almost hear the smile on her lips.

Silence mingled heavily in the darkness betwixt them as they battled with their private thoughts. The popping of the logs in the stone hearth, the cruel keening of the draft and the creaking of the ancient wheel were the only sounds to fill the massive stronghold.

A defeated sigh crossed Belle lips as she listened to the determined silence blanketed snugly over them. Perhaps he wasn't too open to share his reasons or maybe he thought that would give her some sort of advantage. Shaking her head she began to rise from her perch at the foot of the door.

"I like to watch the wheel," Rumpelstiltskin admitted suddenly. His voice was a calm and thoughtful timbre, bereft of the tittering giggles of the imp. Eyes pinioned upon the wood he slowly turned the creaking wheel at a vapid, contemplative pace. "It helps me forget."

Leaning against the door, the beauty pressed her brow to the polished wood. For a moment she was tempted to open that door to stare at the pain she knew would be upon his face.

Compassion filled her flagged heart in a wave that near impossible to bear. His voice no matter how calm, told the tale of hurt that made her heart ache with a pang that shuddered through her very bones. Melancholy danced through her mind like autumn leave swirling in the wind. There was pain in the words that he didn't speak but were on the tip of his tongue.

And for her, she wished with all her heart to relieve that pain. No one deserved such misery. Not even he.

Swallowing hard to catch her own emotions she dared to query further. "Forget what?" What was so horrible that he needed to bleach the thought from his mind every night? What such horrendous memories hounded his brain that the creaking went on for hours and hours in the same steady pace?

So much, the Dark One wished to speak. There were so many things he dreamed to forget. All his regrets, all that he had left behind, all of those who had hurt him and spurned him and told him he was nothing but a useless cowards son and that's what he would always be. He wished to forget the lives he had needlessly taken all to prove to himself he was no weak coward and yet in the same instance solidifying the words that poisoned him so long ago. For others courage came from within. Yet his courage, truculent and ignoble, had taken an act of the most powerful magic to dredge up an ounce of bravery.

Opening his mouth, the fiend, nearly let forth what thoughts dogged his heart and wounded his mind. Instantly, he snapped his mouth close. Darkness washed over him in black, unctuous waves. He had almost divulged something to her. Almost.

These were not things to speak of to anyone, he reminded himself sternly; especially not intrusive rats.

"I guess it worked," he giggled whimsically and flitted his talon carelessly through the air, once more the impressive, cunning imp who let nothing unduly faze his gray-gold hide.

His ear twitched for a huff of annoyance from the beauty, but instead he heard laughter.

Soft giggles of mirth tumbled from Belle's lips at his jest. Even with the pain so close, he found away to bury his misery and in a blink of an eye and made her laugh from the ashes of his own pain. Regret pawed at her heart that he did not wish to speak his heart, but she understood. They were enemies. They had only shared a moment and that was perhaps all that could be expected.

"Now," Rumpelstiltskin uttered firmly, dedicated to changing the subject from his wheel and his thoughts, "Since your arm is nearly healed up shouldn't you be hiding away in your new nest, rat?"

"I wasn't in the mood to hide today," Belle retorted good naturedly. Since her accident they hadn't done much against one another. He let her roam free without harassment and she did the same.

Instinctively running her assiduous fingers along the muslin bandages, a smile tilted her lips. She wasn't surprised he knew her arm was nearly healed. He had given her the balm after all and the potion, whatever it was, worked wonders in so sort a time. Surely he must have known the affects before he even handed her the jar in the mists.

Drawing his wheel to a stop, the fiend smiled a slick grin. Slapping the palms of his hands on his leather covered knees the Dark One tittered a menacing chuckle. "Well let's just see if we can-"

He paused as he tried to rise. The stool under him scuffed the floor, but he couldn't budge. Puzzled, the fiend pushed upwards, attempting to rise again. Trying to get to his feet again, the seat scuffed along the stone floor and her nearly tumbled back. Confusion wrinkled his brow as his words fell to a halt. Why couldn't he get up?

"Clearsyrup. Clear and extremely sticky sap that I may or may not have spilled on your seat." Belle informed him, her words fringed with laughter. "You really shouldn't leave such potently sticky things around."

The bottle of sap hadn't been lying around per say, Belle knew perfectly well, but he had so much clutter and troves of odds and ends the bottle could very well have and he had forgotten all about the sticky gunk that seemed to seal anything.

Clutching the edges of the seat, the Dark One tried to pry himself from the seat to no avail. His black leather pants were firmly glued to the wooden stool.

A curse fled his mouth as he realized only trying to get out of the pants or magic would solve his problem. Enraged, all thoughts to wheels and memories forgotten, the Dark One snarled towards the door.

"You'll pay for this, rat," he threatened viciously, but his lips were traced with a wide smile.

Scuffling away from the door, the beauty laughed back to his hint of trickery. "I'll be waiting," she parried and disappeared into her haunts, breaking their moment of peace but leaving new thoughts etched upon their hearts.


	8. Kindness of the Strangest Sort

Gray days that heavily blanketed the alabaster tundra passed pleasantly in the sprawling dark castle. Heavy drifts of purest frost adorned the land in rising dunes and shallow valleys hewn by the bitter mountain winds, frosting the world all in white. Coppices of fir and dark pine at the base of the jagged peaks stood out against the ivory in splashes of vibrant greenery that made the snow seem all the brighter.

With the large banks of snow layered upon the sleeping earth, no one could come and go afoot to or from the castle leaving them involuntarily stuck with one another. Since their last talk, the Dark One and his intruder had become auspiciously relaxed about one another. Though their somewhat lax nature was not advanced, some sort of ease dwelled betwixt them. A wary sharing as it were.

The beast never thought twice about hearing her soft footsteps padding along the dark halls and down the multitude of stairwells in his citadel anymore. Her noise mingled seamlessly with the expansive keep giving the castle a new aura that hounded the moaning drafts of forlorn solitude and pain that whispered along the rafters. She was an infuriating ray of light that dashed away the dark places here and there along the castles, leaving patches of herself behind like blooms of wildflowers.

What tricks were played were light-hearted jests augmented to display their most cunning. Small amethyst spider webs were left in Belle's path or oils that turned her skin temporarily blue, and everything from Rumpelstiltskin's clothing being moved all about the stronghold to dumping a hoard of bath soap into every cup in his house went on day after day.

Little by little they spoke more to one another like acquaintances and not prey and predator. Still they held their bouts or anger where he was his most beastly and she her most furious but moments of peaceful snippets of talk dotted their meetings every now and again. Like strange rains in a desert not everything between them was arid and dry all the time.

She came to the door of the great hall often while he spun his tawny straw. He seemed his most gentle then and his words, though rough and beastly were soft. Contemplation hedged his voice and his heart then, turning the furious monster into a mostly soft spoken thinker with his mind running from his past.

They were a conundrum to one another they both knew ostensibly the more time they spent near, but one that seemed only to become more puzzling the more they were together and yet stone walls apart. He was not only the beast of legends old and she not simply an ambling bard.

~8~8~

Thoughts Rumpelstiltskin knew he shouldn't have been thinking of his intruder relentlessly hounded his mind as the winter months passed. Day after day his thoughts found their way back to the peculiar rat in his domicile. A rat called Belle. Though she was destined to find only death in his home, he couldn't help himself from letting his mind surround her like a moat fringing a castle.

Her cunning was admirable and even on par with his, he admitted freely to his sensibilities. Respect blossomed in him more each day. She was a worthy opponent and he truly could never predict what she was about until whatever cunning trapped she had laid sprang to life and ended up hitting him full force in his grinning face.

Trailing listlessly through his citadel the Dark One pondered his intruder thoroughly. Walking through the maze of his titanic palace helped him think and concerning Belle every ancient thought needed to be turned to her and carefully dwelled upon. Perhaps, he sometimes considered when full dumbfounded, he would run out of castle to walk before he ever could figure the mystery of the woman.

A small, half smile tattooed his scaly features as he carefully strode about his home. His knee high boots made the sound of shadows upon the stone with each light almost floating step. Oft he employed his penchant for subtly to unnerve those who sought deals with him. Silence made his entrances so much more… grand.

Tapping his chin with a wiry claw the fiend pondered the puzzle of his rat. She was bright, brave, incorrigible, light, and kind even in her tricks, she was lucky, truthful, and… reading?

The Dark One's brow furrowed curiously as the last, abrupt thought slipped involuntarily into his tactile mind. Where had such a credulous thought come from, he pondered curiously.

Pausing instantly in his tracks the Dark One stretched his hearing to their limits. The mournful, wailing drafts brought forth the cry of he long dead, but also the gentle voice of the other beating heart that lived amongst the dark stone.

Placing his back upon the cold rock wall, the fiend steadied his breathing into a quiet and focused on the voice above his silent inhaling. She was in a side room, he could tell, one that held a few tomes that no longer had anyplace in his library.

The grand library that sat in his manse was so full no other book could fit on the selves. The tomes tumbled out and he ha simply thrown them into the odd room here and there.

She was reading a tale of some princess and a frog, he deciphered from the draft. The tale was a long ago fanciful one, reserved more for children than adults. A small grin twitched at his lips as her voice wafted like spring winds down the hall.

The foolish woman. A small smile twitched upon his mouth as he shook his head at the thought of her silliness. What was she thinking reading aloud? He hadn't planned on being in that particular part of the castle, and certainly she must not have been expecting him but she was being foolishly careless. Her voice, if he chose to peruse would weed her out in a moment. The peril of her reading could easily set her in peril of a trap. She should have known her hazard for such a recreation so why did she read aloud anyway?

Perhaps, he reckoned, she was laying a trap for him. Shaking his head the fiend dealt the thought a vicious blow, dismissing the supposing far into the back of his thoughts. Belle did not operate in such a manner. The rat excelled in things that could not be spotted until they were sprung.

Did her love of books go so far? She was bard, a woman of tales and songs and legends but did her craft sink so deep she would risk being rooted out of another hiding place all for her love of books?

The foolish action certainly seemed like something Belle would do. A scoff of amusement huffed from the fiends thin, smiling lips at the thought.

"Hello?" Belle's tremulous voice sang intrepidly upon the wailing draft with a different tune. She had been lost in a world of the book but not so much so she had forgotten her surroundings entirely. Suspicion and guardedness painted her lovely timbre, slipping her back into the world before her and not the one locked away behind the leather binds of a tome.

A dull thump of a book shutting rang through the keep. Boots scuffled along the hall in a swift tattoo to flee. Even without reply she knew not to push her luck to linger.

Catching a sigh in his throat, Rumpelstiltskin snapped his fingers to return to the great hall. A puff of amethyst swarmed over is body and in an instant his figure arrived in the warmth of the ostentatious chamber.

Somber, unwarranted thoughts dogged the Dark One's mind as he arrived in his hall. Flicking a hand laconically at the hearth, he summoned fire to the gluttonous wood. Rich, bright flames leapt at his magical command spreading the dim room with glaring light.

Indulging in his thoughts about the woman, the fiend let his considerations ebb away into the sea that was the contemplation of Belle.

She had been long without much, he knew imperatively. Was that the reason of such risk?

Walking vapidly to his chair the fiend slid down. Nesting sulkily in his normal brooding perch the Dark One tented his fingers beneath his chin. The woman had nothing of her life before the expansive Dark Castle; perhaps books would be one solace. She did seem to enjoy them, he noted.

Yes, Rumpelstiltskin nodded, she did enjoy them greatly. staring into the flames, the fiend searching the dancing fires, his mind spinning. Perhaps he could capitalize on that love. Not for his own mean but for hers.

Even those dying, he supposed, deserved a last comfort.

~8~8~

Belle tossed and turned restlessly in a dark nave somewhere in the upper portion of the East Wing.

The insipid torches flickered dimly in their holders, pathetic fighters against the dimness of the corridor. Cobwebs garlanded the vaulted ceiling and dirt all but encrusted the walls.

Darkness lorded over the world, and certainly Belle was exhausted from hr labors of the day, but sleep was hard in coming for the beauty. Sighs tumbled past her mouth with every twist and position she tried to lull her off into a restful doze.

Thoughts burned like wildfire through her bright mind, leaving no way for the hand of sleep to shut her eyes. Memories of her life before the Dark Castle flashed in rapid session behind her closed lids, her eyes moving beneath the thin flesh.

Would she ever have any of her old life again? Wild she ever is able to obtain a moment or two to something she loved and cherished?

Certainly not, she reprimanded herself. The thought sparked a grimace to her mouth. Who was she trying to fool? Her life was all but over.

A curse sprang heatedly from Belle's lips as the thoughts refused to leave her to restful repose. Sitting up, the beauty leaned her back against the cold wall. Rubbing her eyes, Belle fumbled for her pack in the dimness. She might as well find a new place to sleep for the morrow, she considered. There would be no sleep tonight it seemed.

Angrily folding her cloak, abruptly something caught the corner of her right eye. A dark figure cloaked in shadow dashed down the end of the hall. Jerking her head to the end of the corridor, the beauty grabbed her dagger from nearby. Her eyes narrowed in the blackness, peering into the folds of sable. The figure had been blurry but Belle was certain she had seen something.

"Nothing," Belle scolded herself roundly and turned her head away. Packing her things roughly she growled to herself, "You're tired and now you're seeing things in a magical castle."

Even as the words grumpily fled her mouth, a rustle echoed from the direction of the blur. Scooping up her old leather pack in one smooth motion the beauty rose and warily neared the exit. Too long had she been in the sprawling keep to let a second instance of strangeness keep her in one place. She pushed her luck with one odd sighting, she would not dare her chances again

Slinging the old cord of her pack over her head, the beauty nervously palmed her stiletto. The blade probably wouldn't do much, but the cold steel gave a sense of surety in the bleakness of the keep.

Tremulous thoughts swirled unsettling through Belle's mind as she neared the open end of the hall. The keep was magical in nature. Who knew what sort of anomalies roamed the halls or what long dead specter drifted from room to room. Though she had seen no ghosts or phantoms part of her was almost sure they abided there, their lives taken by the master of the fortress in some deal or blind rage.

Peeking her head from the corner of the hall, the beauty stared down another dim corridor. "H-hello?" Her words constricted in her throat, sounding butchered when they tumbled from her mouth. Echoes reverberated mockingly down the hall, making her flush. Blood swelled to her cheeks in shame. She was no mouse, but a woman not afraid of her own shadow.

Licking her lips the beauty scuffled out further into the adjacent hall. "Hello?" she called again, her voice studier.

Ominous silence and stillness reigned in the hall like a thick blanket stifling any certainty. Though nothing moved, Belle was certain something lingered in the deepest parts of the oily shadows. In her days of traveling the world from town to town from woodland to forest and all in-between she learned when something was close her be it animal or man.

"I know you're there," the beauty stated crisply, pushing back any fear she held in her voice.

If it was the Dark One then certainly he would have made himself known, Belle reasoned nervously. He liked to be garrulous and lurid and extravagant. He did not sulk in shadows in his own home.

Who else would be there then, she considered. To the best of her knowledge there was only he and she.

Belle's brow wrinkled as she scanned the darkness again. Consternation etched her face with confusion. Maybe she was wrong. Perhaps the castle was playing tricks on her with flashes and noises.

Turning away slowly, the beauty eye barely caught another glance of something shooting from the shadows in a different direction. There was no doubt in her mind now something was there.

Without a second thought, Belle took after the shadow. Curiosity oft overpowered trepidation for Belle and the shadow was no exception. If there was something new in the castle, a new person, a new threat she needed to know.

Lunging into the darkness, the brave bard blindly trailed the thing. Through halls and up stairs, the beauty tracked the shadow. She couldn't properly see the creature, but there was always just enough to espy from the corner of her eyes to keep her going. Moving swiftly the thing seemed to treat her pursuit like a game and did so in the spriest manner.

Belle sucked In cold air as she lumbered to the top of another flight of spiral stairs. Her knees practically shook from fatigue as she scaled the last marble flight. The shadow was certainly leading her somewhere or just wanted to make her run around and then dance in circles about her.

Lungs burning the beauty surveyed the new quarters the shadow had brought her. A dark, vaulted corridor with less light than most stood before her like the open maw of some long dead creature. The torches were too fall in-between to provide much in the way of even paltry light. Dots of guttering yellow stained the shadow like rotting teeth. Dark red, moth eaten tapestries adorned the walls in nearly a stifling way. The air was heavy and musty with dust that sat cloying through the air.

"I know you're here," the beauty declared firmly, her eyes scanning the sable shadows.

Walking into the darkness, the beauty sneezed as a puff of timeless dust from her disruption plumed in her face. To her left a door opened just at the moment she looked away to sneeze.

A thin stream of soft, golden light slipped from the door leading like a trail to the shadows whereabouts.

"Got you," victory hemmed her voice. Breaking out into a smile, the beauty warily crept to the door. Her red boots barely made a sound upon the coarse stone as she neared her quarry.

Though the door had all the makings of a trap, the beauty was disinclined to think so. The Dark One did not operate in such a fashion. Though she didn't know imperatively all his way she knew how he was wont to act. If the room was a trap he was certainly taking a very surprising turn in his tricks.

Right arm pressed flush against the thick wood of the portal, the beauty pressed her body close to the door. The smaller the target she was, the less chance of getting hit by something. Breath froze in her lungs as she readied herself for the lunge. Slowly opening the door with one hand, her knife in her left, Belle quickly entered, hoping to avoid any trap there might be. The door creaked sonorously, giving away her presence, but in the sudden moment of her entry, no amount of sound mattered.

In an instant her sense were stunned. Any warning of a trap that lingered in her thoughts died away in the majesty displayed in the bright room. Awe danced upon her features at the marvelous sight before her.

Books, mountains of books, all sat in tall shelves before her. The room was a dome like chamber filled with tomes and compendiums in every cranny and nook. Clean glass high away in the domed rafters let the night sky show all the twinkling, celestial marvels of the sable firmament. The wondrous view above was but a sideshow to Belle compared to what the massive chamber contained.

Every tome was placed in wooden niches upon the circular shoves that composed most of the walls. Large brass and wooden ladders leaned upon the shelves to reach the ledgers high upon the towering places. The only place not covered in shelves for books was a large space carved out for a fireplace.

Smooth alabaster marble made molded the fireplace, shinning off the light better around the room to add more luminance. A roaring fire danced merrily in the white hearth, bracing the room with golden light. In front of the heath a soft, thick rug of sapphire to deny the cold of the floor and a few tall backed black chairs were neatly place before the flames. A little stack of books sat to the left of the hearth, inviting anyone with the thirst of letters to sip from the chalice of all the knowledge they could ever desire.

Dazedly walking into the center of the room, Belle looked everywhere, her head spinning just as her body. Surprise adorned her features in lovely awe. She knew he had books and often she enjoyed prying into their yellowed pages and seeing what they were about but she hadn't had any idea he had so many in his possession. There had to be more books there than she could ever read.

The pack in her hands slid numbly from her grip as she padded towards the warm, inviting fireplace. All thoughts of teasing shadows and things that danced right outside the edge of her vision sprinted away into the warmth and the ecstasy of the library walls. Not even a trick from the Dark One could have made her any less astounded.

Slowly kneeling in front of her hearth, the beauty stated curiously in the dancing red flames. Her hands sat flat on her thighs; Belle let the warmth kiss her face. The glow of flickering red-orange flames kissed her skin into pale burnished bronze. Comfort washed over her with the warm fingers of the hearth swaddling her. She hadn't been so comfortable since the last inn she had found shelter at.

Shadow or not, fate or accident the Dark One was behind leading her to the library, Belle knew implicitly. Though she had no proof deep in her heart she knew the notion to be true. Her spirit whispered the realization as though taken from his mind and cast upon the wind.

Eagerly turning to the pile of books stacked next tot the heath, Belle plucked up the first one. A small gasp of delight echoed from her smiling lips at the title of the book she had been skimming earlier. Delicately her fingers graced over the yellowed vellum pages and the faded green jacket. She had no doubt now this had been a conspiracy. He had set everything up.

For what she had no notion, but she was grateful nonetheless. Such wonderful things did not happen everyday, especially in the life she found herself in now. The library was a welcome find and she would never forget such a thing.

A thankful grin settled upon the beauty's face with the untoward discovery of the expansive library. Curling up on the rug in front of the popping hearth, the beauty let her mind go off to distant places as she began where she had left off earlier.

Hearing her gasp of pleasure the fiend smiled to himself. Pleasure floated in his blood and hummed along his skin. Like a shadow slinking off into the folds of darkness the Dark One departed from the library door, his heart oddly please. He didn't know why he had done such a thing, only that it felt... right.

She now had a comfort, and, the beast determined suddenly, a place to stay without being moved again.

Nodding to himself the Dark One ambled down the hall. He had terrorized her long enough with never letting her have a proper rest. For as long as he chose to keep her alive the library would be her rats nest. Permanently.


	9. Shadows

Belle couldn't shake the feelings someone was following her. Since the first morning she had awoken in the warmth and magnitude of the Dark One's library, the feeling of some hunters eyes pinioned upon her prickled ominously at her senses. Everyday now she felt an aura of something trailing her at the oddest times

The hairs on the back of her neck rose involuntarily from time to time, giving her the proof that something wasn't quite right. When she peered into the shadows that languished in the Dark Castle, the shadows felt as though they stared right back. A spirit now lurked amongst the rafters, watching her and perhaps meddling with her mind.

Things she put down where constantly being tampered with. A book on a drawer abruptly was moved to a chair, a cup was water was moved across the great hall table, and even her dagger had been put on a hook somewhere in a room she had just cleaned and left there simply to swing.

Constantly now she second guessed herself in the slightest happenstances. Had she left a bucket there? Was the mop in the same place she left it? Were those books stacked that way when she left? Though as a bard she had an excellent memory she couldn't help but wonder about some early senility kicking in from being so long in the sprawling mansion of the Dark One. She wasn't wholly convinced on that matter, but the thought still gave her gristle to chew upon at night.

In some instances the consistently cold air changed for no reason. As she walked a chilly pocket of wind became warm. She would skitter away only to feel the frigid chill of the draft upon her Goose pimpled skin. Though she couldn't see anything something felt amiss. She knew something was hunting her, but what.

"He's up to something," Belle remarked to herself as she stared absently at the new book in her grasp.

The tome's face was a faded green and the spine was crooked from age. Patches of worn leather from the covers told the tales of the book being lovingly handled often before somehow the tome fell into the fiend possession.

Licking a finger, the beauty flicked away from the page she had merely skimmed. Though she was eager to delve into the pages of the multitudes of books at her fingertips, thoughts of the master of the castle danced in front of her eyes, blinding the neat words scrawled upon the yellowed pages.

How could she lose herself in the worlds of forgotten tomes if she felt the eyes of some predator upon her? Forgetting what she was in the palace was a disastrous peril, Belle knew implicitly. A peril she could not afford. If he had set some eyes upon her, some beast to track her, then she needed to deal with the thing before she found herself loser in the game far too soon.

A sigh of frustration escaped Belle's mouth at the thought. Grimacing, the beauty gently closed the book, careful of the spine peeling away from the book itself. Running the flat of her hand over the faded green cover, the beauty leaned against the base of a chair. Pulling a knee up to her chest, the bard wrapped an arm over her leg and laid her chin upon her knee.

Placing the book down beside her, she cursed the master of the castle who spirited away her ease without even barking at her or shouting his threats. Even without saying a word he could keep her on high alert.

Frustration coursed through the beauty as the Dark One's tittering giggle of triumph rang through her mind. She could almost hear him with his impish chuckle, flaunting another trick well played whilst not even lifting a finger. She would never get any reading done or ever be at ease again if she kept worrying, she chastised herself inwardly.

Perhaps the library was but a ruse to make her feel comfortable and plan for the biggest trick of them all, the bard considered thoughtfully. Maybe he needed her out of the way to make ready his biggest scheme against her. Perhaps that was what she was feeling, a certain heralding to a much larger scheme.

Inquiry and worry both gnawed like ravenous wolves at Belle's ambling thoughts. Plans he might have been working danced madly through her brain. Combing her diligent fingers through her honey amber mane the bard knocked a rebellious tendril of hair from her features that disturbed her from her thinking. What recourse could she take against any plots he planned; she contemplated deeply, her mind awash in stratagems.

Mind caught in actions of her own, the beauty knocked the lock of hair away that fell into her face again. If she only knew where he slept, perhaps she could make an attack there. Again she brushed the stubborn strands away from her face, her mind awash in plotting of her own. Did he sleep, she pondered. Did a legendary creature need rest?

A growl of frustration mumbled past the bards frowning lips as the same vine of dark, chestnut hair fell back into her gaze. Forcefully yanking her hair back, the beauty looked up from her pondering for a moment. Her head craned only an inch upwards, but the sight she saw froze her.

Panic filled her heart at the sight caught before her vision. The merry glow from the bickering flames of the fireplace cast her shadow in a jagged, angled slanting away from the hearth as it should have been. What should not have been was the shadow floating above her own….

Fear froze Belle's blood to a frigid halt that stopped her heart in mid beat. Her lungs contracted in terror and refused to release the sharp intake of air she inhaled. Goosebumps shivered and thrilled along her arms and neck. The hairs on her nape snaked upon end, dancing in the moaning draft.

Slowly, almost as though her limbs lay frozen, the beauty flicked the hair back. Here eyes gazed upon the shadow and her own, looking for any movement. Feigning ignorance she pretended as though the sight of the sable figure hadn't rocked her.

Cocking it's head to the left, the creatures weaved back and forth behind her shadow. Ethereal fingers moved like lighting through the air and mischievously flicked the strand of hair of her shadow back forward making her tangible strands fly against her will.

Horrified, the beauty scrambled forward. Books scattered in every direction along the thickly woven azure rug as she scuttled away from the thing behind her. Leaping to her feet, the bard twisted her body around all in the same, frightened motion. Pawing for her dagger, the beauty brought forth the weapon for any way to defend herself. Breath tremulously gasped from her slightly parted lips as she waited to see a figure behind her.

Surely the shadow belonged to the Dark One. Certainly the shade was his last trick before he ended her life.

Eying the space that once lay behind her, the beauty gaped at the sight of merely a diaphanous shadow hovering through the air. The figure looked only mildly resembling human. Darker than a moonless night, the shadow stood out even in the darkness of the stone walls. The head and the shoulders as well as the torso were easily made out, but the legs melded together into some ghostly tail that slithered and twisted in the cold drafts. Eyes of spectral gold stared blankly at her from the blank face. Though the thing possessed a head only the eyes were distinguishable from the blank slate of its barren visage.

Bravery flared like a tiny light through the beauty as the creature made no move to attack. Slowly letting her damask dagger down, the bard sheathed her paltry blade. What would a dagger do against an intangible being anyway?

Shoulders slumping slowly, the bard inspected the hovering thing. Certainly the fiend had sent the shadow, but black pretense of a person did not look at all hostile at the moment.

Narrowing her eyes slightly, the beauty studied the thing closer. In fact, she noted inwardly, the shade looked somewhat familiar. "You're the thing that led me here," Belle concluded suddenly, her words low and awed.

The shadow, with no lips, canted its head to the right. Though the thing heard her, it had no mouth to speak.

A small smile of relief twitched upon Belle's lips at the action. Even with no discernible face or mouth to speak, she knew curiosity when she saw it.

"The Dark One." She spoke the name hoping the creature would recognize the title. Taking a fearless step forward, she craned her neck to look into the golden orbs of the faceless creature. "Is he the one that prompted you to bring me here?"

In reply, the creature did a backwards loop through the air. The fire flickered crazily in the hearth at the sudden action, making him disappear for a moment then reappeared with the blazing lights steady bickering. His form rippled and cut like a jagged shadow before stilling into a placid shape once more.

Warm air danced mischievously through the beauty's hair, making her think immediately of the master of the castle. Oh yes, he had sent the shadow before her; no doubt.

Laughter sputtered from Belle's lips from the playful reply. "I'll take that as a yes," she responded to the wordless shadow. Putting her fist on her hips, she smiled brazenly at the shade. "Have you been the one dogging my every step? Moving things that I put down? Making me think I'm losing my mind?"

Catching on, the thing nodded eagerly. How proud it was to know certainly he had been baffling the maiden with the pretty shadow.

"Clever of him," the beauty muttered breath her breath. "How clever indeed." He had prompted a shadow to do his tricks, both making her overly worried about a new jest on his part all the while toying with her right under her nose.

Tapping her chin with a finger she contemplated his new trick. Not many could get their own shadow to work jests on people. Perhaps he would not expect the same to be played on him.

"I suppose he gave you some order? To perform small tricks?" she inquired gently to the shadow.

While the creature belonged to the Dark One, Belle knew, the thing did not seem particularly bright. With instructions it could perform orders rather well, but that seemed to be the length of its cunning. Orders were the only thing that prompted thought in the creature to put to task his instructions.

The thing nodded again, its ethereal chest puffed out, showing pride in the work his master demanded.

Shrugging, Belle turned her head away from the thing feigning sadness. "You've done a very good job, but I'm afraid since I know of you now you'll not be able to trick me so well again."

Suddenly, just as though he had realized the truth of her words, the creature deflated like a balloon losing air. Head bowed, the think swayed lower from side to side sadly.

Though the thing had been set upon her to torment her existed in the sprawling citadel, Belle felt a wave of pity for the creature. All it had done was obey the commands of its masters, nothing more.

A small smile etched Belle's lips in a cunning grin. "Well you may not be able to play tricks as well as you have been on me again, but there is another to whom you may lay your trickery," the beauty remarked gently, careful to not draw suspicion from the shadows slow wits. "What if you were to play your tricks against the Dark One?"

Belle's heart jumped as the creatures golden eyes narrowed dubiously. An aura of menace flared like a pulse of light throughout the room for a moment. In an instant the creature was no longer a curious being, but one of malice and angry lethality. Swishing its tail dangerous through the air like a whip, the creatures lofted higher in the library.

"Let me explain," the bard held her hands out peaceably to the shade, her voice calm though trepidation lanced her heart. Now more than ever she needed her skills as a word weaver. " Here me out. You cannot play good tricks on me any more, but you were ordered to play jests and mischief. If he did not specify _who _to play the tricks on you may still perform your duties. That is the greatest trick of them all, to trick those who think they are the tricksters!"

For a tenuous moment the creatures stared at her, his eyes still puckered suspiciously. Great golden eyes pinioned upon her like tawny moons from above. The creature shifted in the drafts and Belle held her breath. Fingers twitching the shade gave a wary nod.

In some ways she made sense. The Dark One ordered him to perform tricks and surely his master would appreciate the greatest trick of them all.

Relief breathed out of the beauty lips in a grateful soft sigh. Her shoulders slumped thankfully as she stared up at the spectral, dark phantom. A broad smile drew upon her face as she sat down Indian style before the shadow. The glow from the heart made her shadow dance along the rows of books on the back wall as she began to lay out her plan to the shadow of the Dark One.

If the Dark One set out a hunter to stalk and prowl upon her, then the time had come for him to know he was not the only one who could do the hunting.

~8~8~

Rumpelstiltskin grinned victoriously as his shadow slipped under one of the doors that lead to the great hall. Sitting comfortably in his chair, before the roaring fireplace, one leg stretched out, his knuckles holding his chin, the fiend turned his head to the shade that flew high in the vaulted rafters.

The creature wafted to the grim ridden wooden knave and swirled around the timbers like some malicious snake. Twisting and coiling its tail along a light brown beam stained dark with smoke, the creature looked down at the form that had torn him away.

"Have you irked our unwanted guest enough for tonight?" he queried the creature in a trill.

Sense the bestowing of the library the fiend had decided another recourse for his tricks. The shadow he employed proved to be a great boon he discovered. She was not suspecting in the slightest how things kept going awry. Not even she was clever enough to suspect a shadow as the culprit.

Hovering right above him, the creature bent its head solemnly, his shoulders slumped shamefully. Feigning guilt the creature turned it blank face away.

In an instant, the fiend grin evaporated. His shadow was not one to look like a dog that had done something wrong. He knew very well the shade was capable of rather ignoble things. His shadow was a killer if he wished it to be.

"What did you do?" Humor fled his voice, turning his timbre into one of icy suspicion.

Swirling higher to the rafters like some servant fleeing the wrath of its master, the shade made a slicing motion against his throat.

"What!" the fiend's voice roared luridly about the stone walls of the great hall? Furious, he pointed a talon to his ethereal being. "Take me to her, now!"

Nodding obediently, the creature floated away the way he had come. The firelight shivered and dipped with the passing as the shadow glided swiftly across the room.

Alarmed, the fiend followed behind his shadow, his mind whirling. He hadn't been ready to end his rat so soon. If his shadow had gone too far with a jest…. Shaking his head the fiend forced himself not to think of the implications. Perhaps the thing had done something that proved fatal though by accident. Certainly moving books was one thing, but what if it had dropped some on her head? What if the jests had gotten out of hand and turned into something serious?

Marching studiously behind the shade, he refused to think the worst of what the shade indicated, though his mind milled with such happenstances. Surely he would have felt her life force ebb, he considered as he scaled stairs after stairs. Maybe she was in trouble from the shadow, he pondered critically. At any rate, he needed to know what had occurred.

Even as the thought came to his brain, the shadow stopped at a certain door on the second level of his home. Wafting about there threshold the shade pointed a finer to the wooden portal.

With a stern shake of his head the Dark One banished the thoughts away. Whatever happened, he would deal with the issue promptly, the beast swore to himself. Waving a hand at the door, he opened the portal with but a thought. Without thinking, without waiting for word, the beast stepped through.

Entering the doorway, the fiend immorality knew something was amiss. The room was dark but the musty smell rankled through the air as though someone had disturbed the hoards of dust. As his right foot came down, he heard a small snap of twin rending.

In a blink of an eye the world of the dark one turned upside down. Cords all strung and braided together to make one tight rope whizzed from a cunningly crafted pulley from the ceiling. The rope tightening about his leg and jerked him upwards in a trap.

In an instant the fiend swayed upside down. His dirty brown hair hung from his hair in wavy tendrils and the edges of his jacket and tunic came down leaving a bit of his stomach exposed.

Swinging upside through the air, the Dark One could barely process the entire maneuver before laughter echoed about him. Sweet mirth wafted through the wind, filling him with rage.

"For the hunter of this game, you don't seem to be doing much of the hunting," Belle proclaimed jestingly. "Here I have caught the Dark One in a simple bandits trap. In his own castle no less."

Rage filled Rumpelstiltskin at her victorious words. How had she…? Looking towards the shadow in the doorway the fiend knew the answer. There was no way it couldn't have known what she was planning. Still, even with the answer, he couldn't quit believe it. How had she converted the shade? His own shadow no less?

Spitting a curse from his lips, the fiend snapped his claws, summoning magic to his behest. Amethyst smoke sawed away at the fibers cutting him free from her simple trap. "Caught, yes," Rumpelstiltskin admitted freely, his voice a dark growl. "Held?" he scoffed at the absurd though as the last fiber snapped. Dexterously turning through the air, the fiend landed like a cat on his feet. " Held? No."

Brushing off his clothes, the fiend glared murder into the darkness. He knew she was there, scuttling about the darkness like the intrusive rat she was. Oh yes, he knew it very well, but to strike out her now would prove the fury that roared beneath.

"True as that may be, you were captured still. Whether or not you escaped is irrelevant." Feigned, innocent mocking hemmed her voice. "Or am I wrong on that score, Dark One?"

How he hated her. Riotous fury engulfed him from her sticky, sweet voice. How he hated when she became so sweet, knowing very well her words were all too true and he had no way to combat them.

"Relish in your little cunning, rat," he spat acidly. "'tis one tale you will never be able to tell."

Turning to the door, the fiend pointed at the shadow vehemently, his eyes ablaze with cheated wrath. "And you, you helped her." There had been no way she could have done it all alone. The shadow had to be the one to set the trap high in the rafters. He had led him there, thinking she was hurt, knowing full well she wasn't.

Snapping his talons again, the furious fiend sent magic hurtling toward the hapless shade. "Back to the walls with you, traitor," Rumpelstiltskin cursed.

As though accepting its fate, the shadow pressed again the wall in the dimly lit hall. Dark tendrils of purple slithered over the sable form branding it too the wall in smooth, flawlessness. In an instant, the free moving darkness aligned again with the Dark One's body, the free movement stilled.

Sniffing imperiously the fiend shucked at his brown tunic. What was the world coming to when one couldn't even trust their shadows?

"Oh don't be cross with it," Belle pleaded from the deepest darkness of the rooms shadows, her voice hurt. "I never meant for it to get into trouble."

A snort rankled from the Dark One's flaring nostrils. "It's a shadow. Nothing more. I conjured it to come and aid."

"It had a personality," Belle argued plainly.

A grim, cruel smile carved the fiend mouth. "Personality? Are you sure?" Stomping out of the room, the Dark One turned back around and peered into the darkness. "Being here so long I thought you might have forgotten what that was seeing as though you haven't seen another person in three months."

"I just might again," the bard rebuffed defiantly. Still she refused to believe she had no chance of living. Only after the mortal wound struck her would she abandon all hope.

Laughter, dark and cutting tumbled from the fiend mouth. His hand fell upon the golden latch to the door as he moved away. "That is where you are wrong. You see, rat, the difference between my capture and yours is that I can be free in a moment. You will be held until the day I decide you no longer amuse me. Then," he growled, "the only freedom will be death."

With that, the Dark One slammed the door shut, leaving the beauty left with the arrow of his words deep in her heart and the determination to live glowing even brighter in her soul.


	10. Shadows II

"Done," Belle breathed happily and smiled to herself as inspected her newest trick along a pitch black, narrow corridor. Satisfaction blazed in her heart like summer sun over a wildflower field bursting with vibrancy.

Wiping her hands along her red leather pants, the beauty marched a step back and inspected the trap. No one, not even the Dark One would be able to know the trap was there until the last minute.

The moment she had come across the hall she knew the place ripe and perfect for a trick to be strung along the rock walls. No ever glowing torches flickered in the small corridor. All along the rock, the corridor appeared to be a place where one citadel had been mashed together with another from some different palace.

The place in all respects looked akin to a servant's hallway rather than for anyone of noble status. Just another twist in the labyrinth called the Dark Castle. Far too long was she used to the twist and turns of the sprawling manse to be surprised by the mishmash of rock and mortar of different stones and style, but she saw the usefulness of the hall.

Though Belle had come through the hall that did not deter her from setting up the trap. Room by room, little by little she had taken what she had need to create her trick. A strip of faded white cloth here, a bell pull there all came into her arsenal.

Gathering supplies and making do with things on hand she had set herself up on the other side of the trap. That fact though, did not worry her in the least. The castle always had more than one way to some place. Never had she delved into a hall that did not at least have three other venues in the midst to lead to another portion of the castle that always led her back to a place she knew.

Pleased, the beauty turned away from her trap to explore the far, dark end of the foreign hall. The trick was all set up. The only matter that remained now was how to get the Dark One to come through said hall.

Winding through the cobwebbed strewn halls, Belle meandered thoughtfully down the dim corridors that boded only ills to all who were unused to their ominous bearings. She was never sure what new place she would discover in his illustrious, strange citadel, but she was always prepared. Besides, she noted inwardly as she came to the end of the hall, that was part of the fun.

Pawing away at gray cobwebs filling the corridor, the bard stopped at the barrier baring her way. Two large double doors towered over her far towards the black, age old rafters.

Slowly padding towards the twin doors, Belle inspected them before trying to touch them. The doors were not very wide but what they lacked in length, they made up for in alarming height. Stretching upwards to the dizzying rafters, the doors seemed to go on forever until coming to two points near the beamed rafters. The doors were carved of dark brown mahogany wood and oiled so that even in the haze of dust they seemed to shine in glossy resplendence. Ornate handles carved of filigreed gold in the shape of lily stems glistened under a film of dust.

Of all the doors that led to the myriad of place, Belle had never chanced to see such large, wonderful portals. Tucked away so clandestinely in a random corridor, they seemed to lead into a different realm of the keep.

Curious wrinkled the beauty's features as she neared the doors. What lay behind such serene grandeur? Tentatively clasping the golden curved handles, the beauty pulled the doors outwards. Cool, clean air, unlike the continual musty aroma of the citadel wafted about her and played with her hair.

A gasp of wonder and delight sprang free of he mouth as she viewed what had to be the grandest room in the still, half unexplored castle. Though she had no idea what other chamber pockmarked the sprawling stronghold, she felt sure she had stumbled upon the greatest.

Grandeur lay upon every item in the gilt room. The chamber was larger than even the greatest of kings feasting halls, she guessed if the tales from other bards were to be believed, and even then they were known to exaggerate the truth. Standing on a sloping row of blue runner stairs with a matching set on her other side, she stared down into the room. Oblong, the room displayed the wealth of ten kingdoms. Dozens of golden columns made entirely of the valuable ore rose to the ceiling. The floors were made in lapis lazuli and alabaster marble interwoven with veins of gold so that they made shining squares. Dim torches flickered between every column, making the gold shine resplendently and adding a great light to the room.

Velvet navy blue curtains that would conceal a troop of musicians hung open in a corner next to the door. At the furthest end of the room light blue curtains covered what had to be rows of endless windows perhaps even a balcony seeing that she was on the third floor.

Above her, an inside balcony curled all around for people who would not be attending at the bottom floor. The railings were also made of gold and ran along the entire rim of the room so the balcony was akin to a spectators seat.

Above, the greatest chandelier in perhaps all existent swung above. Holders upon candle holders rested on the chandler. The white, tallow candles were unlit, but tall, telling of the hours they would take to dwindle when ablaze. The ceiling above held the images of spry woodland creatures and fae painted vibrantly in ever canvas of color and outlined with gold to make them twinkling in the grandness of the magnificent chandelier.

Numbly stepping down the steps and into the room, the beauty looked at all she could at once. Her steps echoed in dull lurid tempo about her. She could greatly see the balcony, but not over the golden rim.

"The Ballroom, Dearie," Rumpelstiltskin's revealed to her, his voice resouning about the golden columns and alabaster marble. Lodged in the balcony above, he prowled the large observatory.

Snapping his fingers, the Dark One beckoned magic to his mischievous behest. A hundred tiny flames jumped to life upon the ornate chandelier, washing the room with golden light.

The moment he had sensed her coming into the grand ball room, the Dark One had cast himself into the balcony. Oft time since she arrived so unexpectedly he wondered when she would discover the room if at all.

Spoils taken from wherever took his fancy, he took special pains to create the grand place. Inwardly he was proud of the ballroom, and he wished long for her to view the magnificence of the chamber, but he wouldn't simply give her a grand tour. Now that she had stumbled upon the chamber, he was more than happy to entertain her awe.

Back against the stone wall furthest from the railing, the fiend could not see her below, but her shadow danced along the golden wall and the columns. All that he could make out was the featureless shape of her shade, nothing more.

Taken by surprise, the beauty flinched at his voice. Taking a step to the wall she tried to hide her form.

"Worry not," the fiend trilled impishly. "I can't see you yet. I don't want this game to end right here. I wouldn't want to ruin the floor with blood. If I wanted that I would have made it of rose gold." A chortle of devilish delight barked from the beasts mouth.

A shiver trailed Belle's spine at his sinister giggling. The Dark One seemed like he lived to off kilter her so. Stoically steadying her will, she took a tenuous step out from behind the column.

"This place," the beauty gasped, "I've never seen anything like it."

Never in all her days had she seen such grandeur all adorned so before her eyes. In the minor courts she was invited to spin her stories for a week or so they had built lovely, quaint ball rooms for special occasions, but nothing so grand and glamorous as his chamber.

A small chuckle, more sedate echoed about the ballroom. "That's how I wanted this place to be. More grand than any in all the land."

Snapping his talons he flung his shadow to the wall next to her own, if just to startle her. His shade looked like a blackened spear of charcoal formed into human shape just as before. The shadow still obeyed him, but now her large silhouette held a companion.

Holding his hands together the fiend prowled in the back of the balcony. "You should know by now I adore having the very best at my disposal." He was, he noted, a creature that denied himself nothing.

"But you never have any company," Belle stated gently, her eyes staring at the weedy shadow next to her own.

Falsetto scoffing echoed about the chamber. "That doesn't mean I can't have it," Rumpelstiltskin chirped. "Now none can say they have the best ballroom in all the realms."

"So you just want something so someone else cannot have it?" the beauty queried. Stalking his shadow with her own she shook her head. What kind of man wanted something only to do nothing with what he held?

"Some one else would have such a grand place," purred the fined mockingly. Abruptly, he turned to her, his shadow facing her own. "Why not me?" he flourished a hand through the air in his flamboyant manner.

Laughter swelled from Belle's mouth at the exaggerate motions of the shadow. He certainly was an expressive man to go along with his impish trill. "Perhaps because it sits here gathering dust, oh Dark One," she parried humorously. "A waste for such a lovely place."

"A waste you say?" the fiend stood straighter, his back as rigid as an arrow. One arm behind his back he placed the other on the lapel of his jacket and faced her shadow. "Well I can't simply pick it up and move it to some deserving kingdom."

She arched a brow, her lips curved in a half grin. "Well why not?"

Why could his magic not move a ballroom? Why could he not conjure hundreds of ballrooms? Certainly his magic did not look limited. Perhaps, Belle contemplated, his powers were. Shaking her head, the beauty tucked the helpful thought in the back of her mind for later. Maybe there was a grain of hope in such a trail of thought.

Rumpelstiltskin paused then, uncertain how to reply. Certainly his magic could garner such a thing. He should have, admittedly, thought of a better retort, but so long in his life none dared to challenge anything he said. He was the beast. No one dared question him.

"Like I said, Dearie," a growl rumbled in the midst of his good humor. Placing his hands on his chest he made a grand gesture towards himself, "it's mine."

A determined smile steeled upon Belle's lovely face. He did so like keeping his reasoning, no matter how abhorrently flawed. Taking a step forward, the beauty held her hands up against his like some maiden beginning a dance. Her shadows palms touched his own in ethereal contact.

"You worked diligently to create this place." Belle's shadow took another step towards his own, leaning in mischief.

On instinct, the fiend backed away and show did she. His feet fell into a cadent rhythm to some unheard song betwixt them. Circling around each other, they reversed her shadows so that she stood on the right and he the left like dancers beginning the first steps.

A smirk twitched upon his gray-gold skin. "Your talent of perception is bar none, rat," mocked the Dark One. Stepping in again, he leaned towards her shadow this time. Placing one hand lower, the beast created the effect of holding her waist.

Taking no offense, the beauty met his shadow again with palms outstretched to meld against his own. "My question is why." She preformed a twirl and instinctively his shadow seemed to catch her own. "You have so much treasure here a dragon would be envious of your hoard. Why do you need it?"

Surely a man who could conjure anything had no need for riches. People desired affluence to buy things and have power. Why would he need gold if he could have those things already?

"I don't need any of this, bard. I have it because I want it," Rumpelstiltskin parried crisply and led out his ethereal, shadowed hand, letting her spin to the end of his claws. Jewels, gold, trinkets, bibelots, treasure from all the realms, that's all he desired eternally.

"No one can want this much…. stuff," Belle interposed as she swayed along with his shade. "Eventually one block of gold will look like another." A blush rose to her cheeks. "And I suppose…."

Curiosity twinkled in his eyes from above as he watched her swaying shade. "Suppose what, Dearie?" The beast asked, his voice oddly gently. He curled a hand over her shadows waist and stepped closer, their shadows but inches apart, his shaded head craned down to look upon hers. "Spit it out."

"I know you have far more treasure and spoils than any in the realms, but you seem to me the type of man who isn't interested in these things," the bard admitted bravely. Looking upon his shadow, her heart somersaulted of its own volition and for the life of her she could not say why.

Forcing the feeling of her faint heart away, she focused on the discussion at hand. Things such as skipping hearts would not do, she scolded herself, and turned her attentions back to the ballroom and his wealth.

How could a man who enjoyed simple fare, and seemed to only inhabit a handful of rooms which were not even truly the most ornate cherish all the treasure therein his vast citadel? Why would dust gather upon the gold and jewels and legendary items cached in heaping troves of his palace if he truly cared so much for them?

Laughter, dark but genuinely amused, tittered softly from the fiends smiling lips. "And what, rat, do you think I have all these things for if not for my interest, hmm?"

"I think your trying to fill a hole," Belle rebutted promptly before her good sense could take her tongue. "I'm a good judge of people, Dark One. I've seen things like this happen many a time on my travels. Some take to drinking, some take to dangerous tasks, others take to joining warriors on daring quests to feel fulfilled. They lost something they care about in life, and now there is a gaping hole lodged in their bodies they're desperately trying to fill."

Icy dread clamped over his heart with his sagely words. How close to home she had hit, the Dark One remarked inwardly to himself. Hadn't he always been clamoring for more and more since Bae? Hadn't he always tried to give his boy more and more, to show him the power he wielded was good for them both?

Shaking the private, hurtful thought away, the beast pulled away, his shaded arms holding her so that their shadows almost seemed as one. "You're right there is something I care about?"

Belle shadows leaned in, not in victory, but an eager listener. "What?" she breathed anxiously.

"My things!" the fiend trilled devilishly, taking delighting in his ownership of such affluence.

A huff, more amused than annoyance, burst from Belle's lips. Part of her knew she should have seen such a thing coming. "Well, if you won't admit it at least we have done something productive today, you and I. We have put this ballroom to good use, once."

So they had, the fiend realized imperatively. Though not a dance in any traditional sense their had been engaged in some lighter than air footwork. Their shadows had glided across the columns and the grand floor with the appearance of dance. How such a thing was started he couldn't quite recall, only that for the moment such a thing had been a pleasant distraction from his day to day just as she had been.

"Indeed we had," he agreed, trying to push her impressive gift of perception under the rug. "Raising a hand to the side of his chin and one under his elbow, his shadow looked to inspect her. "Where did a rat learn to dance so well?"

Soft laughter shivered to the chandelier in reply. "I am a bard, Dark One. I've been to more villages' celebration, filled in for a sick bard at some nobleman's palace more times than I can count. You pick up a few things here and there." She replied guardedly. Perhaps the truth was not best to reveal at the time.

Curious, the bard arched a brow. "And where did the Dark One learn such technique? Seeing as though he so sparingly uses his ballroom."

"I was alive before your great, great grandsire probably," the fiend chuckled, "I've mastered more arts than you could possibly know."

"Well know I can say I know something as absolute truth from the Dark One." Belle smiled, though her shadow could not convey the grin.

Rumpelstiltskin paused for a moment, taken by the fact. Blinking rapidly, his mind connected her words. She had pried something from him and he had given her the knowledge freely. Anger should have boiled within, but only humor. "You're clever, bard," he commended almost in a friendly manner. "Very clever indeed. When I kill you, I shall admit I shall miss these witty battles."

Bowing deeply, the fiend allowed a smile to trace his lips. "I'm glad we did this," he admitted freely. Thee was no harm, he supposed, in having a little neutral fun for a moment or so. Besides, she was at times a delight to parry words with. Not many could combat him so.

"And I as well," the beauty dipped a small curtsey. His words of demise, unlike many a time, barely phased her.

A light rumble of pleased laughter hummed from his lips as he departed, his shadows leaving hers bereft of a companion. The lights upon the chandelier dimmed leaving her again in a murky twilight like his cheerful attitude. His boots echoed down the steps and to the narrow hall as he began to meander back at a slower pace from whence he had came.

Happy for the calm moment, the beauty leaned against a gold pillar. The cold ore felt good upon her skin as she let the moments replay in her mind. His company was well received, even though at first she had been expecting some sort of tr-

"Wait!" Belle shouted aloud, recalling her trap.

Far too late the warning came.

A cry of surprise barked from the Dark One's mouth. A splash and a thud echoed dully through the ball room telling the tale of a sprung trap.

The beauty cringed as the sound pierced her ears. Wincing, she shut her eyes and moved further into the shadows. Of all the times to forget. They had been having such a good time too.

Sputtering, Rumpelstiltskin clawed away white goop from his eyes. Something old and linen had been in front of his vision when he turned the corner of the narrow, dark hall. He had had no time to move away before the cold white glop fell from above sloshing him in thick alabaster.

His clawed hands felt over what she had used to bar his path and stall him before the fluid spilled over him. The clothing was old and made of thin, patched linen. Roughly worked the tunic looked cheaply made. Bae's old clothes.

White slime forgotten, the fiend held the ruined garment close like some destroyed treasure. He could fix the thing no doubt but the thought of her using something so precious so carelessly was anathema in and of itself. He didn't care if she smashed things or even found a way to melt down gold, but Bae's old clothing, something that reminded him of his boy was not to be touched.

"Where did you get these clothes?" Murder brimmed in his snapping inquiry, his voice a malicious growl.

Belle melded into the shadows, trying to find another exit. Another door, cloaked in shadow sat in the corner and she slid her way to the portal "I… they were in a chest on the first floor. They looked old and worn that's why I…."

"You stupid, foolish woman!" roared the fiend.

"I… I'm sorry," Belle tried to make amends. Though she had no idea why he was so upset, she could only guess she had struck some nerve with the molded cloth.

Gripping the soaking tunic tight, the fiend fought to use magic to wring her neck. "Hide, bard," his voice rumbled like ominous thunder behind the mountains. "Hide and remain hidden before I decide this game has gone on long enough."

Far too wise to challenge such fury, Belle promptly obeyed. Whatever she had done, she knew regretfully, she had dashed away any companionship they had forged with the shadows dance.


End file.
